


There's a 15th Fear, and it's Teenagers

by benevolentmonolithicc



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Canon Asexual Character, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Ghost Hunt UK, Humor, Jonah doesn't ruin everything like the turd he is, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist is a Mechanism, M/M, No beta we die like archival assistants, POV Alternating, POV Original Character, Romantic Fluff, Teacher AU, Teacher Jon, The Mechanisms Were The Archivist's College Band, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, What the Ghost, everyone is happy, everything is okay, jonmartin, teacher!jon, what the girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 25,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24406627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benevolentmonolithicc/pseuds/benevolentmonolithicc
Summary: What if Jonah didn't ruin everything? Didn't send the end of everything statement? What do Jon and Martin do now? Get a job, I guess. A teaching job, for Jon, though it was hardly his first pick. But sometimes your boyfriend looks *really* excited when he suggests it, and I mean, you know literally everything. It can't be that bad, right? Right?
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Helen | The Distortion & Basira Hussain, Helen | The Distortion & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Helen | The Distortion & Martin Blackwood, Martin Blackwood & Basira Hussain, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Melanie King & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 482
Kudos: 2119
Collections: Yumi treasure box, tma fics





	1. The First Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ehlihr (ehlihr)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehlihr/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonathan Sims laments the situation he has found himself in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the link to the original comic: https://twitter.com/ehlihr/status/1252829657260453888  
> (All of their stuff is really good, please look at it!)

It was all Martin’s fault. Jon wasn’t qualified to teach English, let alone Year 11s, yet here he was. Going to his first class. It’s just  Martin had looked so...excited when he suggested teaching. And it’s not like there were a lot of other job opportunities in the middle of nowhere Scotland. But that didn’t alleviate the anxiety that Jon felt as he walked to his first class. It didn’t make him want to sink into the linoleum any less. (They didn’t make you teach in the Buried, right? It was all dirt and claustrophobia?  Jon could Know, but if he didn’t focus  exclusively  on walking in a straight line he was going to collapse in a ball of anxiety.)

How many horrors had Jon faced? How many horrific creatures of nightmares had Jon fought?  And yet here he was, staring at a door that didn’t even lead to an infinitude of doors and hallways, feeling more nervous than he had any right to. He gripped the door handle and turned it. And Jon wished the door had just been one of Helen’s.

The room was full of children. Well, they weren't children per se, but it didn’t matter. There were so many of them, chatting to each other, laughing, looking at their phones. Martin had said not to make eye contact. That had been his big advice, though Jon couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I mean, they weren’t wild animals. It’s not like they’d take it as a challenge, right? They were just people.  Just  Year 11s that he was unqualified to teach in a job that he’d lied on his resume to get. Everything was fine.

Jon set his things on the desk and picked up the yellow chalk that sat on the metal tray in front of the massive green chalkboard. He could do this. Martin believed in him. He wasn’t here with him now, holding his hand and telling him that it was all going to be alright, but he believed in him. Jon started to write. It was just like in the movies Martin had shown him in preparation.  Martin had said that Jon was always going to have to watch those movies because  apparently, Jon’s lack of knowledge about popular culture was “embarrassing, but kind of cute.” He wrote the subject, the course, and his name. He was a Mr. Sims now. It felt weird to write. He turned to the class and cleared his throat.

The class went silent. That was...that was bad. Students never shut up for the teacher in Jon’s experience, and yet here they were, ready to hang onto his every word. Jon tried not to pick at his jacket. Is this what his victims felt like? This abject, crushing horror of being seen,  truly seen? Jon didn’t like it, but he didn't have a choice. He cleared his throat again.

“H-Hello class,” Jon stammered. Fuck! He was already fucking up! He couldn’t show any weakness, and he didn’t need Martin or a movie to tell him that. These were Year 11s for fucksake! “As you know Ms. Laurie has retired, leaving me as your new GCSE English teacher.” Miss Laurie hadn’t retired. Or, she hadn’t meant to. It felt convenient to Jon, the opening, the timing. The Eye probably did something.  Which wasn’t the best sign, but you never looked at a gift mysterious job opening in the convenience of the circumstances.

“You can call me, er, Mr. Sims, I suppose.” That’s what he’d written on the board right? It felt weirder to say than to write. “Or Jon? Well, that may be inappropriate actually.” He was sweating in his patch elbow jacket.  “Anyway, I suppose it’s only fair that I let you ask me questions since Ms. Laurie worked here for 40-odd years-” It was exactly 43 years. Almost to the day. The knowledge popped into Jon’s head and sat there like a fat slug, smug in its place in the garden. “-And you all knew her pretty well, so...ask away.” That was normal, right? He’d seen it in one of the movies Martin had shown him. Jon hadn’t been a Year 11 in sixteen years, and he’d blocked out most of it. Hands rose. Fuck. Jon pointed at the first one he saw.

“Uh, yes Miss…?”

“Lily,” said a girl with bright red hair and a pinched face. “Have you ever taught English before?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then why are you teaching us?” the girl demanded.

“I believe  they were desperate.”  Crushingly desperate. The woman who’d interviewed him barely looked at his resume. Jon’s eyes scanned the room and landed on a pudgy boy with a fledgling mustache just starting to come in. “Yes, Mr…?

“Ivan. Where did you work before here?” he asked, playing with his loose tie.

“A research institute.”  Technically true. The Magnus Institute was officially a research institute.

The boy raised an uninterested eyebrow. “What did you research?”

Jon looked away quickly. “Anyway!” His eyes drifted to a student with a shock of pink hair and nearly as many piercings as Melanie. He pointed at them. “You, uh-”

“Ari.” They leaned back in their chair. “Are you married?”

“What? No-”

“How old are you?”  Ari’s eyes bore into Jon’s with an intensity that, if Jon didn’t know better, Jon could have sworn was that of an avatar of the Eye. Or just someone who didn’t like Jon.

Jon rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, no.”

Ari shrugged and looked away. “Fair.”

Jon glanced around the room again, feeling like it was getting smaller.  Maybe there _was_ teaching in the Buried, Jon felt like he was suffocating. He pointed at the tallest student in the room.

“Yes, uh-”

“Abdul. What made you want to teach after research?”

Martin.

“Um, I have a 2:2 in English Literature.” Abdul made a face.

“That doesn’t seem like enough.”

It wasn’t.

“Well-” Jon pointed at the closest person to him. “Yes, uh...”

“Alfie.” The boy looked like a young Jon. Or like what you’d expect a young Jon to look like. “What’s your favorite book?”

Jon almost wept in thanks. “ _House of Leaves_.”

Alfie looked disappointed. “Never heard of it.”

Of course not. No one had. He was forcing Martin to read it to finally get someone to talk to about it. “Oh, well, it’s quite good.”

Alfie nodded, uninterested. “I bet.”

“Um, Miss…?”

“Olivia.” She was short and her face was more freckle than anything else. She had the most piercing eyes Jon had ever seen. More so than Ari’s. More so than Jonah Magnus himself. Jon shuddered. “Are you English?”

“Yes?” A smattering of sighs and I-told-you-sos erupted from the class. Jon could have sworn he saw money exchange hands. But Olivia was undeterred. She didn’t break her eye contact.

“Then why are you here in a tiny Scottish village?” Olivia demanded. “Are you running from something?”

“...where is your uniform tie, Miss Olivia?” Jon said lamely. He looked at the class and their hands like flagpoles and he clasped his hands together. “Okay, enough questions!” He slunk behind his desk and the din of chatter returned to the room. “I’ll take attendance and review the syllabus.” Jon looked through his papers and tried to ignore what the class was saying.

“How d’you think he got all those scars?”

“Maybe  he was in a gang?”

“No way, Look at him! He’s too spindly.”

“That’s twink-ist, Kyle. Twinks can be in gangs if they want to.”

“My mum said she saw him at the shops.”

"What, are gang members not allowed to go to shops?"

Jon glanced at the clock and his heart sank. The day had barely started. He was going to kill Martin.

If you had told Jon that he was only in that room for seven hours, he would have called you a liar. And he knew,  objectively, that it had only been seven hours. But he also knew, deep down, that it had been an eternity and then some.  It was an indescribable relief to make it back to the Safehouse, which Jon felt was going to be a safe house from more than just what he and Martin had left behind in London.

“Martin, I’m home!” he called into the cabin.

Martin glanced up from the couch. He didn’t start work until next week. “Oh, hello Jon! How was it?”

Jon sank onto the back of the couch and smiled weakly. “It’ll get better."

Martin rested _House of Leaves_ on his chest and looked at Jon. “You have the rest of the year.”

“God, don’t remind me.” Jon rolled his eyes. "It’s like having twenty Eliases in a room, Martin.”

Martin snorted. “Well, to ease your new fear, how’s a rooibos sound?” Martin was already halfway to the kitchen, mug in hand.

“Sounds lovely, thank you.” Jon flopped over the side of the couch and started kicking off his shoes. They were his nice shoes because he’d wanted to make a good first impression, but they pinched like hell. Jon could hear the water starting to boil in the electric kettle.  Martin called it sacrilege, but it had been in the cabin before they got there, but Martin needed tea to survive, apparently and they didn't have the funds yet to waste on kettles if they already had one. 

“Get yourself sorted then, love,” Martin called.

“Alright.” Jon sighed. He would in a minute. For now, he was just going to lie on the couch and take in the sounds of tea brewing. It was nice to have a break every once and awhile.


	2. Great Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eleana Broadchurch weighs the pros and cons of cheating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the comic this is based off of:  
> https://twitter.com/ehlihr/status/1265120885243076608

It was not Eleana’s fault she didn’t read _Great Expectations_. It was Charles Dickens’. I mean, yeah Eleana knew the bastard was paid by the word, and she had mad respect for him doing what he can to get that money, but _fuck_ man! It was just so boring! Her family watched every version of _A Christmas Carol_ a dozen times over, even the horrifying Disney mo-cap nightmare that gave her little brother nightmares, but when she'd tried to read the thing a few years ago, she barely made it to the first ghost. And she'd used Sparknotes of course, she wasn’t stupid. But there were things that Sparknotes couldn’t help you with.

Eleana tapped her pencil on her desk and glanced up at Mr. Sims. She didn't know what to think about him. He was a mess, of course, anyone could see that, as well as screamingly uncomfortable talking to them, but Eleana kind of liked him. He tried, which was more than she could say of Ms. Laurie. And he was a bit of a caffeine addict, which Eleana could respect.   
  
He was also dead asleep.

Mr. Sims was always asleep during these things, and some days it looked like this was the only sleep he got.  His head was down on his sweatered arms rolled up to the elbow along with his white button-up, (he was always wearing a sweater, and they usually didn’t even fit), and he definitely wasn’t looking. He wouldn’t be able to tell. It was the perfect crime.

But cheating though. Eleana didn’t like cheating. It made her forearms itch, though that may have just been the guilt. And she didn’t really want to cheat her way through Year 11. She’d already cheated on that Biology test, and she’d nearly thrown up when she’d made eye contact with old Mrs. Bissett in her pale pink cardigan. She looked back down at her test and itched her forearm.

It was sickeningly blank. She’d answered a few questions, a couple of multiple choices here and there she’d just guessed at. The essay portion leered at her from its place on the page with milk-white eyes and a devil's grin. She could even see Sims’ glasses folded neatly on the desk, right next to a steadily cooling cup of tea. It wasn’t even like he’d look up and see her. The clock on the right-hand wall ticked ominously. She glanced over to Greggory Patel. He'd gotten her through Biology, and any other test she needed help on.  They'd known each other forever, grown up on the same street, and Eleana suspected that he probably would have asked her out by now if she wasn't gay. He didn’t look up at her. He didn't even stop scribbling, or anything. He just pointed at the sleeping Mr. Sims with a lazy, graphite smudged finger. No, not at him.  Just above him.

There was a poster on the chalkboard. It was crudely taped and massive, nearly as wide as Sims' desk, and Eleana didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before. Drawn on the poster were two nauseatingly realistic eyes staring directly at her. Eleana hadn’t realized Sims could draw a stick figure, let alone get that degree of detail or that level of intensity. Above them, in Sims’ clean, practiced handwriting, a near-perfect Sans-Serif, were the words “I’ll Know.” Eleana stared at the eyes and she found couldn't look away. She itched her forearm.

And somehow, Eleana knew that he would Know.

Eleana stared at the eyes, mouth slightly agape, not even having the energy to mouth the words she felt deep in her heart, (which were, in her true punk rock fashion, “what the fuck.”) The snap of her pencil brought her back. She hadn't realized it was still in her hand. Eleana sighed and looked at the clock, still resolutely ticking on. She still had time. She reached into her pack and pulled out a fresh pencil.   
Eleana glanced back down at her paper, still worryingly blank, and started to chew on the metal part of the pencil-like she had when she was small and started to write. If she could bullshit her way through History, she could bullshit her way through this. Even still, Eleana could just take the fail. She'd study harder next time. Maybe talk to Greggory before the day of, or invest in books on tape, though those always made her fall asleep. Most of all, she hoped the next book wasn’t Dickens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the original comic again: https://twitter.com/ehlihr/status/1265120885243076608  
> (It's really good you guys)  
> Also I know in the UK you call them jumpers, but I'll die before I call them that. I can take Uni and flats and maths, but you've got to draw the line somewhere and that line is the word jumpers.


	3. Accidentally Using Your Powers Like A Dumbass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonathan Sims forgets that he is an avatar of a god of fear, and acts accordingly.

Scotland was nice. Or, the break from everything was. Jon and Martin still got the occasional raised eyebrow and dirty look whenever they spoke. Sometimes Jon could even forget he had his powers, and that was usually a good thing. 

The first time Jon forgot he had the powers of a literal god, he was reading aloud to the class. Books aren’t statements, but there’s still a sort magic in them. And Jon may have had a bit of a flare for the dramatics. It was the closeted theatre kid in him. Or it may have been just the book he was reading. _Lord of the Flies_ always had a bit of fear living inside of it, seeping into its core and imbuing it with a strange heaviness that you could really feel burrowing into your bones. It hadn’t been Jon’s original plan to read the books as a class, but as it happens with these older works they were dreadfully dull to read alone, and his test grades were suffering for it.

The kids actually liked him reading to them. Consuela told him that it made her feel like she was a kid again, and he never had them as rapt as he did when he read to them. And sometimes one of them would make a joke about the books, and he didn’t even mind it. They were engaged in the story, and that was what really mattered, even if he found himself having to fight to maintain his composure.

They were pretty far into _Lord of the Flies_ when it happened. Jon didn’t know that it would happen like this, or why it happened when it did. Reading to the class was familiar. Pedestrian. He didn’t even feel the crushing weight of his anxieties when he read to them. Jon held the book loftily in one hand, propped himself up on his desk with the other, and let the words flow out of him like water from a spigot.

> ...Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable. 
> 
> “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” 
> 
> The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complementary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was the throb and stamp of a single organism. The dark sky was shattered by a blue-white scar. An instant later the noise was on them like the blow of a gigantic whip. The chant rose a tone in agony. 
> 
> “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” 
> 
> Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind. 
> 
> “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” 
> 
> Again the blue-white scar jagged above them and the sulphurous explosion beat down. The littluns screamed and blundered about, fleeing from the edge of the forest, and one of them broke the ring of biguns in his terror. 
> 
> “Him! Him!” 
> 
> The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe. 
> 
> “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” 
> 
> The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. 
> 
> “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” 
> 
> The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws. 
> 
> Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the struggling heap on the sand. Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away. Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.
> 
> Now a great wind blew the rain sideways, cascading the water from the forest trees. On the mountain-top the parachute filled and moved; the figure slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air and trod with ungainly feet the tops of the high trees; falling, still falling, it sank toward the beach and the boys rushed screaming into the darkness. The parachute took the figure forward, furrowing the lagoon, and bumped it over the reef and out to sea. 
> 
> Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and trickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch. 
> 
> The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on. 
> 
> Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose farther and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapors, busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water. 
> 
> Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling, and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea.

Jon looked up at the class. He’d finished the chapter, and so he rested the book upon his desk. All of his students were silent. That was to be expected, he had just read about the murder of a child for God’s sake, but they were all motionless. It took a moment for Jon to realize what had happened.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Eleana was the first to stir.

“You said fuck,” she said.

“He said a lot more than that,” gasped Ari. “That was…”

“Moving,” Deirdre finished, shaking her head a little to clear it.

“A lot more than moving,” Consuela said. “Felt like I was there!”

“That’s what moving means, dumbass,” snapped Abdul. 

Eleana's eyes were rife with excitement and chaos. “Does that mean _we’re_ allowed to say fuck?”

“You’ve got to be head of the Forensics team,” said Alfie, to general murmurs of agreement.

“I...I don’t know anything about science,” Jon said. That was a lie. Jon Knew everything about science.

“It’s not science,” Ivan sighed. “It’s like competitive talking.” As a proud member of the team, he was used to having to explain it.

“Dramatic readings and stuff like that,” said Lily. “Like what you just did.” 

Jon sat down in his swivel chair, distracted. “Sure?” That wasn’t supposed to happen. 

“Excellent!” Alfie pumped his fist. “Who wants to tell Mrs. Bissett she doesn’t need to pretend to care about our club anymore?”

The second time it happened to Jon, he hadn’t slept in two days. The Forensics finals were in a couple of months, and Lily had to drop out. Her piece was the strongest of the group, but it wasn’t like Jon could tell her not to go to her little brother’s play. Martin both found it hilarious that Jon was as into it as he was and terrified for his well being in equal measure. It was early in the morning, and Jon had officially transitioned from tea to coffee after realizing that Martin started giving him tea that was supposed to help you sleep.

The kids had independent work today anyway, so Jon really just had to sit at his desk and answer any questions about whatever the kids needed clearing up. Jon was half asleep when Kida approached his desk. He looked up at her with bleary eyes.

“How are you, Kida?” he asked. Static filled his ears just a little bit, and if he had been in any way aware of anything at the moment, he would have realized why. Kida’s eyes went a little blank.

> We were on a road trip. Anyone who’s known me for any length of time knows that most of my stories start on a road trip. I can’t help it, I come from a very pro-road trip family. It’s my dad’s fault really. He’s American, and he was raised on road trip movies. That’s why we’re always in the States on these big cross country road trips. He says it builds character, but I think he just likes feeling like he’s in a John Candy movie.
> 
> This time we were in Ohio. America’s only got four types of state, California, New York, Texas, and empty. Ohio’s one of those empty states. I never really minded it though. It’s got these huge mountains that just go for miles and miles, and the thing is they’re the only time you ever can see the shadow of a cloud. 
> 
> It feels like clouds shouldn’t have shadows. They always just feel like another part of the sky, like a part of an image on a screen. I actually used to be afraid of those shadows. They always felt wrong to me somehow. Threatening. I guess I’m back to being afraid of them now, though. 
> 
> The thing with road trips, especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere, is there’s not really any place to stop and use the bathroom or wash up or get snacks. After having been on so many of them my family’s gotten pretty good at holding it, packing snacks and the like, but every once a while you just can’t hold it. That’s what happened with Jamie.
> 
> My brother is...was...never as good at road trips as me and my dad. He never really liked them, didn’t see the appeal, especially in places like Ohio. If it was waiting for him, or for us to stop, or for this sort of thing in general, then it taking my brother from me was always going to happen. Jaime just never could hold it.
> 
> He made us pull over by a clearing. There were a couple of hopeful picnic benches scattered about, but we were the only people for miles and miles and honestly, I doubt any of them had been used more than once if that. My dad and I waited in the car. Sweet Caroline was on the radio, and we were jamming out. That song, that stupid song saved our lives. But it couldn’t save Jamie’s.
> 
> I was just looking out the window offhandedly when I saw it. A shadow on the mountains. I’ve seen so many of them I could probably tell you the type of cloud just by looking at its shadow. But this one was wrong. It was big, really big, bigger than any cloud I’d ever seen, and it was...this is where I start to sound crazy, but it was shaped like a person. Long, and rounded, and it moved like a cloud, in that slow float, but none of it separated. It just stayed in that horrible person shape, and it was coming towards us.
> 
> As I saw it I tried to remember what my dad had said to me when I was little and afraid of the shadows on the mountains. It was all in my head, just my mind playing tricks on me. That it couldn’t hurt me. But it was moving towards us, and when I looked up to see the cloud that was casting this shadow I realized the sky was clear, uninterrupted blue.
> 
> When I told my dad, he just laughed. He told me that I was overreacting to this sort of thing again and that I just needed to feel the music. But I couldn’t. I could barely hear Neil Diamond over the dread that was filling me as the shadow moved closer.
> 
> The hand was the first to move into the clearing. It had long, inky black fingers and they moved in a slow float. My dad saw them too, I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his half-hearted singing. He honked at Jaime to finish up, saying something like, ’what’s that kid doing over there,’ but there was an anxiety in his voice that he just couldn’t shake, and I realized with a start that he was afraid of this shadow too. And I became sure of that fact as he began to drive away.
> 
> The thing is, after everything, I can’t even blame my dad. I mean, it wasn’t his fault, not really. And if I was in his place I think I’d do the same thing. But I didn’t feel that way then. I asked my dad where he was going, Jaimie was still back there. My dad didn’t speak. Jaime actually saw us drive away. I saw him rushing after the car from the back window, heard him say all muffled that it wasn’t very funny. It was almost a cruel joke, the song, as hands, touching hands, reaching out, took him and pulled him away in a slow float. My dad never looked back, and we haven’t been on a road trip since.

Jon blinked hard, the bleariness gone. He felt better than he had in weeks. Kida was shaking. The whole class was staring.

“Oh my God, Kida, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. Kida had her hand over her mouth and looked like she was trying very hard not to cry. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Can I be...can I be excused, Mr. Sims?” 

“Yes, of course.” Kida put the paper down on his desk and left the room. She was sick the next day, and very quiet the day after that. Jon just wished he could do something about the dreams. She looked so small in them, so helpless, and he never had much liked the Dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed Kida's statement, but I think this one is better. Feel free to tell me otherwise, though. Also sorry for making you read such a long part of Lord of the Flies.


	4. Recagnition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood are interrupted.

“This is nice, Jon, but I still don’t understand why we’re here.” Jon and Martin were at a restaurant. A proper one too, with booths and candles, and even romantic music filtering through the din. It was like _Lady in the Tramp_. It was like an adult movie who's protagonists are people. It was the first time that Jon and Martin had properly left the house, no shopping or jobs, just the two of them and a table in-between. Martin was fidgety.

Jon raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s a date, Martin. We’re eating at a nice restaurant, there's candles, ambiance-”

“We have food at home,” Martin interjected. “And candles. And ambiance, though  arguably  it has a different sort of ambiance.”

“You sound like my Grandmother,” snorted Jon. “Or like that one John Mulaney bit.”

Martin looked at him with wide eyes and a wider smile. “How do _you_ know about John Mulaney?” he demanded, grinning from ear to ear.

“My students decided to teach me about memes.” Jon said the word meme with the contempt one might say “pineapple pizza” or “Elias.” Martin ignored his contempt.

“Ooh, what are you learning?”  Martin swirled his drink with a  quickly soggying paper straw the waitress had provided them.

“That I hate memes.”

Martin laughed at that. “You can’t hate _all_ memes,” he said.

Jon snorted again. “Watch me.”

“I can watch you hate all memes from the couch.” Martin rolled his eyes and fidgeted in his seat a little more. “We don’t need to be at a fancy restaurant.”

“Martin, we're turning into hermits,” said Jon, exasperated. “We have indentations on the couch like we’re in some sort of cartoon.”

“Very comfy indentations. And you like being a hermit, you workaholic!” Martin said,  accusatorially.

“Maybe,” Jon admitted. “But I can’t spend another night eating our cooking.”

Martin looked at Jon, affronted. “I’m a good cook!”

“You’re a passable cook,” Jon corrected. “And all we’ve eaten for days is ramen.”

“Good ramen.”

“Not as good as they serve here.” Jon placed his hand on Martin’s and smiled at him. “And besides, it’s always good to have a date night every once and awhile.” Then he glanced up and his face fell. “Shit.”

“What?” Martin looked at him, concern washing the joviality from his face and replacing it with worry. Jon made very deliberate eye contact with him, working very hard to not turn his head to the left.

“Don’t look, but one of my students is here.”

“What?” Martin looked around the restaurant.

“Jesus, Martin, I said not to look!” Jon groused. “Just hide me, alright? Quickly.”

“You’re too late Jon,” Martin laughed. “They’re already headed this way.”

“Shit!”

“Mr. Sims?” Lily Navitz approached the table. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m…” Jon put a hand on his face and felt how hot it was getting. “I’m on a date.”

Martin smiled cordially and extended a hand. “I’m Martin. It’s nice to meet you.” Lily shook it.

“How’d you manage to find the only other English person in this town, Mr. Sims?” Lily asked, turning her attention back to Jon, who was wishing very hard to melt into a puddle of nothingness. “There’s not even that many Scottish people here, and we’re in Scotland.”

“We came here together,” Martin explained. Lily looked at Martin with mischief in her eyes.

“Do you know why Mr. Sims is here then?” she asked him,  practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. “‘Cause Olivia says he’s fleeing something, and no matter what Ari says I don’t think he was in a gang. It’s not twink-ist, it’s just common sense.”

“Our shitty boss,” Martin told her, and Jon snorted despite himself. “Though I guess it was sort of a gang.”

“Martin, one, don’t swear in front of children-”

“I’m sixteen, Mr. Sims. And you've said fuck in front of us!”

“-And two, don’t fuel her imagination.”

“So not a gang then?” Lily looked almost disappointed.

“Not a gang,” Jon sighed. This was the first time he’d ever seen Lily out of uniform, and as such he only just processed what she was wearing. “Lily,” he asked tentatively. “Is that a _What the Ghost_ shirt?”

“Oh, yeah!” Lily glanced down at her shirt as if to check that she was wearing it. “You know them?”

“He dated Georgie Barker,” Martin told her,  unbelievably smug.

“Martin!” said Jon, exasperated. But the damage was already done.

Lily looked over the goddamn moon. “Mr. Sims!” she cried. “How come you never told us!”

“Because it’s not relevant.”

“Not relevant? _What the Ghost_ is my life!” Lily cried, looking more excited than Jon had ever seen her. “Ever since _Ghost Hunt UK_ ended it’s all I’m ever thinking about.” Martin was almost in tears with laughter, and Jon was moments from just letting the End take him where he sat. Lily looked at them both with wide eyes. “Mr. Sims don’t tell me you dated Melanie King!”

“Gods no,” Jon winced. “She hates me.”

“You can hardly blame her Jon, she was trapped in that place the same as us,” said Martin.

“You two worked with Melanie King?” gasped Lily. “Wait, does that mean your research job was at the Magnus Institute?” Jon sighed and nodded slowly.  Lily looked ecstatic, and like she was about to ask more questions, but she was interrupted by two women with back length dreads calling her over. “I’ve got to go Mr. Sims and Mr. Sims’ boyfriend, my mums are calling me. Have a nice night!” Lily raced off.

“Mr. Sims,” Martin teased, ruffling Jon’s hair. Jon’s head was completely on the table, and his hands rested on top.

“Shut up, Martin.”

* * *

The next day, Jon knew there was a problem the moment he walked in.  It was something in the children’s eyes, an air of intrigue and mischief that made the hair on the back of Jon’s neck stand at attention. When they saw him come in, their quiet chatter dissipated, but the fire in their eyes did not. Jon sighed, downed his entire cup of tea, and sat on his desk.

“Fine. You get ten questions.” Every hand in the room went up and Jon sighed again. “Abdul.”

“Did you _really_ date Georgie Barker from _What the Ghost_?”

“Yes.” Jon rubbed his eyes tiredly as the class erupted in excited titters. “We met in Uni. Olivia?”

“Why’d you leave the Magnus Institute?” Olivia asked, piercing eyes trained on him, just begging for him to give something away. “It can’t just be because of your boss. I mean, you went to a different country for God's sake. What were you running from?”

“It really was because of him. He's a prick and he tried to get my boyfriend killed.” Jon looked around the room at the ocean of hands and excited faces. “Greggory.”

“Are you gay?” Jon shook his head.

“Biromantic asexual. That’ll be the last question about my sexuality, thank you. Lily.”

“What’s Melanie King like?” Her eyes shone like stars and she was shaking in her seat. Jon thought for a moment.

“Mean,” he said. “She stabbed me.” That got a rancorous reaction from the class. “Ari.”

“Where’d you get all those scars from?” Ari asked. “If it wasn’t that you were part of a gang. Like really, Mr. Sims, you’re a mess. They can't all be from YouTubers.”

“A lot of people really don’t like me.” That was true enough. “Also worms. Consuela.”

“Do you believe in ghosts? And did you say _worms_?”

“Pick a question, Consuela.”

“Hm.” Consuela tapped her chin. “I’ll go with the worm thing.”

“A bunch of worms burrowed into my skin while I was working at the Institute.” Jon shrugged. “They’re dead now. Eleana?”

“How’d you meet your boyfriend?” Eleana cocked her head. “Do you love him?”

“At the institute and yes. Last question.” The room  was filled  for a moment with grumbles of “aw man” and “come on Eleana.” A few hands stayed up. “Alfie.”

“Why’d you keep all this from us?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lily chimed in. “I mean it’s so cool.”

“Really ups your street cred around here,” Ari agreed.

“You never asked,” Jon said simply. He turned from the room and pulled out a well-worn copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The class groaned. “Alright everybody, get into your Shakespeare groups. We’re a week out from the end of the unit so you all better be working the whole time.” He narrowed his eyes at Ivan. “That means you too, Ivan.” Ivan grumbled as he pulled out his own copy of the book on Jon’s desk from his backpack.  Jon sank into his chair and started grading the stack of papers he’d been ignoring, wondering to himself what kind of ramen Martin was making tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if any of you grew up with your parents as teachers, but we couldn't go anywhere with my mom without being recognized by a former student of hers. We drove two days to Maine, and we found a former student of hers there. There are entire sections of the state we're in where we just can't go without at lest four former student emerging from the woodwork. It's a curse. Additionally, this chapter had 69 paragraphs, which isn't strictly related, it's just nice. As nice as all you your comments and kudos and just the decision to read. There, it realates now. Thank you all again.


	5. Lunch Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Martin Blackwood talks to teenagers.

Martin wasn’t sure what exactly he expected to be in Jon’s classroom when he came to pick him up, but it certainly wasn’t children. Okay, sure, it was a school, and it was a classroom, but Martin had somehow never let the possibility of there being children there enter his mind. Sort of hoped, actually. If there was one thing that Martin had learned from his time at school, it was he didn’t like teenagers. They were _mean_. And here were two of them, hands covered in red and with cool, piercing eyes that seemed to pick out every one of Martin’s flaws. Still, he steeled his nerves and put on the most confident smile he could muster, though his nervousness seemed to seep from it like water under a door.

“Hello? Who are you?” He tried to look authoritative. Respectable. Someone to at least afford some modicum of politeness to. Someone, in short, not to be bullied.

“I’m Abdul,” said the taller one, hands on his hips. He gestured at the shorter one with his thumb. “This is Ivan.” Ivan nodded at Martin, hands still tight around whatever the two of them had been moments ago conspiratorially huddled around.

“Is Jon here?” Martin asked, confidence already waning. “Jonathan Sims?”

“He’s in the bathroom,” Abdul said. He glared at Martin suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“Martin. Martin Blackwood,” Martin stammered. He began fidgeting in the door frame, shifting his weight from one foot to the other over and over. “I’m here to pick him up for lunch.”

Abdul folded his arms and gave Martin a wary look. “Well, he’s not here right now.”

“I guess not.” There was a suffocating beat, the emptiness filled with only the sounds of shallow breaths, and the smell of glue and paint. Martin adjusted his glasses and broke the silence. “What are you working on?” Ivan lifted what he was holding, a sickeningly realistic paper mache human head. He gave Martin a shark’s grin.

“Shakespeare.”

“Oh!” Martin forced a smile onto his face, though everything in his being told him to run like hell. But he couldn’t do that. You couldn’t show weakness to teenagers or they’d tear you apart. “How...lovely?”

“D’you reckon we got the eyes right?” Ivan looked at Martin inquisitively and held it out to him. Abdul gave Ivan a look.

“How would he know?”

“I dunno.” Ivan shrugged. “Mr. Sims’d know. He knows Mr. Sims.”

“They look alright,” Martin said, very much wishing they looked worse, and very much wishing he didn't know what dead eyes looked like. The likeness in front of him was sickeningly uncanny. More than uncanny.

“See?” Ivan looked smugly at Abdul. “I told you.” There was another heavy silence.

“So uh, how’s school?” Martin asked. That’s what you asked children, right? They didn’t have jobs or anything. Or did they? One of them had a mustache for God Sake, they were practically adults.

“Fine.” Abdul looked bored by the question. “It’s school.”

“We get to make a head, so that’s pretty cool,” said Ivan scratching his nose.

“Yeah, that’s alright.” There was a beat.

“When do you think Jon’ll going be back?” Martin was starting to sweat in his jumper.

“Dunno.” Ivan looked back down at the head, scrutinizing it. “Soon?”

Abdul looked at the head too and rubbed his chin. “We should ask him about the eyes when he gets back.”

Ivan nodded. “For sure.” More silence. Ivan was the one who broke it. "Why'd you dye your hair white?"

"What?" Martin was taken aback. He'd almost forgotten about his hair, bleached white by the Lonely, and ran a hand through it self consciously.

"Your hair," he repeated. "Why'd you dye it white?"

"I didn't," Martin said, not all that sure how else to respond.

"What, did it just turn white then?" Abdul said sarcastically, in that tone teenagers just threw around, and that cut like knives.

Martin shrugged. "Sort of, yeah."

Abdul gave him a witheringly skeptical glare. "Then why aren't your roots white too?"

Martin didn't know how to respond, so he just sort of stared at Abdul until the sound of footsteps filled the hall, and Jon’s voice filled the room. He looked...well. Martin was hardly an unbiased source, but he looked wonderful. His sweater and button-up were rolled up to his elbows and Martin took the time to revel in just how much healthier he looked than just a couple months ago. He looked less tired, less of a mess, fuller. Like he’d taken better care of himself. Because he had. And not just because Martin had made him, but because he was making an active effort to be better. To live better. And seeing him like this, all alive and happy, as sappy as it sounded, it felt like falling in love all over again.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Jon, not really paying attention to anything, as was his way. “I ran into Mr. Rook on the way back and you know how he-oh. Hello Martin.” In one fluid motion, Jon held Martin's hands, stood on his toes, gave Martin a kiss on the cheek that made Martin feel all funny inside and lead him gently into the room.

“Are you ready to go?” Martin asked a bit dazed, his cheeks burning.

“Oh God, I completely forgot about lunch today.” Jon slumped into his chair and gave Matin an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry Martin. I can’t leave them unsupervised.”

“Administration says we’re not trustworthy,” Abdul gave Martin a very proud look as if he wore that distrust like a badge of honor.

“That,” Jon agreed. “And I know Ivan won’t do his work if I’m not watching him.”

“I’m doing my work!” Ivan looked scandalized, albeit not very surprised. “It’s just worksheets I’ve got a problem with!”

“And reading,” said Abdul. “And writing. And paying attention in class.”

“Shut up, Abdul.” Ivan glared down at the head, an annoyed look on his face.

Abdul rolled his eyes. “Mr. Sims?” he asked.

Jon raised an eyebrow at the pair of students trepidatiously. “Yes?” 

“Do the eyes look right?”

Jon was about to say something, confused, until Ivan held the paper mache head up for him to see with a smile. “Yeah, like are they dead enough?” he asked.

“The eyes look fine, boys,” sighed Jon.

“They don’t need to look a little glassier?” Abdul held up a little pot helpfully. “We’ve definitely got the modge podge for it.”

“They’re the right amount of glassy,” Jon assured them. Martin’s hand was still in his, and he rubbed it a little, casually. Martin squeezed his hand back.

“Should I go?” he asked.

Jon looked up at him in surprise. “What?”

“Should I go?” Martin repeated. He glanced at Abdul and Ivan and then back at Jon. “I get it, you’re teaching.”

Jon smiled softly at him. “I’m not really teaching, I’m just babysitting.”

“We’re not _babies,_ Mr. Sims,” cried Ivan, indignant.

“How’s he supposed to know that?” demanded Abdul, elbowing Ivan. “You look like an oversized one, except for that mustache of yours.”

“Shut up, Abdul.”

Jon ignored the two of them, his eyes still on Martin. “You can stay if you want, Martin.”

“Do _you_ want me to stay?”

“Always.”

The earnestness in Jon’s voice made Martin melt a little inside, and he almost laughed despite himself. “Aren’t there rules?”

“Probably.” Jon gave Martin a mischievous look. “But rules are meant to be broken.”

Ivan’s face shone. “Does that mean I can-”

“No, that does not mean you can bring your cat into school, Ivan,” sighed Jon, turning in his chair to look at the boy, hand still firmly in Martin’s. “As much as I’d like to meet Kroshka, there are rules.” Ivan looked crestfallen.

“You just said-”

“I know what I said.” Jon massaged his temple and gave Martin a wry smile “Welcome to my classroom, Martin. What do you think?”

Martin returned the smile. “It’s very...chaotic.”

“Yes, well,” laughed Jon. “What can you do?” Martin glanced around the room, properly taking it in, and found his eyes settling on, well...eyes. He let out a strangled cry.

“Is that a gigantic poster of _eyes_?” he gasped.

“What? Oh, right I’ve got to take that down.” Jon glanced at the poster he’d hung up at the back of the room. At the time he’d almost found the new placement amusing, a sort of “eyes on the back of my head” joke that the students had decidedly not seen the humor in. “I use it during tests. To prevent cheating.”

“Does it work?”

Jon looked over at the two boys. “Have either of you ever cheated in this class?” he asked them. They both shook their heads. “See?” Martin leaned on Jon’s desk and smiled at him.

“I’m sure Elias would be thrilled to see how you’re using your powers.”

“The look on Elias’ face is half the fun.”

“Who’s Elias?” Abdul looked up from the head, the red paintbrush in his hand dripping paint lazily onto Ivan’s shoes.

“Our former boss,” Martin explained.

Abdul just shrugged. “He can’t be any worse than Head Teacher O'Hara.”

“Yeah, she’s trying to shut down the theatre department,” Ivan agreed with a solemnness that Martin felt shouldn't be in a sixteen-year-old's voice.

“Still?” Abdul offhandedly repositioned the paintbrush to drip down onto his own shoes. “I thought the PTA stopped her.”

“She’s determined, man, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Jon didn’t seem to notice them, only having eyes for Martin. There was a beat, but a good one this time, permeated with the quiet white noise of Secondary school gossip and the quiet squeak of Jon’s chair. Martin broke the silence far more begrudgingly this time.

“We should probably do something about lunch, now that we’re not...you know."

Jon rubbed the back of his neck and gave Martin a rueful glance. “Yes, well sorry about that,” he said. “It just sort of slipped my mind.”

“I get it. I don’t suppose you’ve got food in here?” Martin asked.

“We’re not allowed. Something about mice.” Jon made a disgusted face at the word mice. Abdul looked up at the pair of them.

“Why don’t you just order something?”

“What?”

“Like UberEats,” he said.

“Or GrubHub,” Ivan added, helpfully, and Abdul nodded.

“Or GrubHub.”

“What?” Jon furrowed his brow in confusion as if Ivan and Abdul had started speaking an alien tongue. Though from the utter lack of comprehension in Jon’s eyes, Martin reckoned that Jon would have had a better chance of understanding if it had been an alien language. Abdul appeared to have reached a similar conclusion, and his face lit up.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of UberEats before, Mr. Sims,” he asked, as if he was praying for that to be the case.

“Or GrubHub, Ivan added, unhelpfully.

Abdul waved him off. “Shut up about GrubHub, Ivan.”

“I can’t say that I’ve heard of either, actually,” Jon said, worry creeping into his face at the excitement on Abdul’s.

“Really, Jon?” Martin fought not to laugh. “How can you Know everything and not know about UberEats?”

“It’s not like you suggested it,” pointed Jon, defensively. “Or have used it.”

“But I’ve _heard_ of it.” Martin shook his head affectionately. “You’re like an old man sometimes, I swear.”

“What, just because I haven’t heard of an...app?”

Martin beamed at him. “Are you asking if it’s an app or not?” he asked.

Jon gave him a lost look. “Maybe?”

“It’s an app, Mr. Sims,” Ivan called.

“Don’t you help him,” scolded Abdul, hitting him playfully on the arm. “It’s funnier if you don’t.”

“Yeah, but his boyfriend’s here.” Ivan gave the head a once-over and dabbed some more paint on its nose. “We don’t want to embarrass him too much. I mean, he’s learned a lot already.”

“You have?” asked Martin, and Jon gave him a very tired look.

“Unfortunately.”

“Hey Mr. Sims,” shouted Abdul, a look of triumph on his face comparable to Alexander the Great looking over a newly conquered land. “Look, it's the good kush!”

Jon sighed, and not just with aloud, but with his whole being, as if it took all of his efforts not to just melt into the sigh and become an amorphous blob wriggling on the ground. “It’s the dollar store,” he said, in an emotionless monotone, without even the wherewithal for disgust. “How good can it be?”

Jon looked at Martin with pained, tired eyes and Martin laughed. “Very good, Jon.”

Jon rolled his eyes and sank into the desk, becoming, in some small way, part of its grain. “Just figure out how to use an ‘Uber Eats’ and get us something to eat, alright?”

“Alright.” Martin kissed Jon on his forehead and pulled out his phone. “But next time you’re picking me up for lunch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are there Principals in Scotland? Are there PTAs? Drumlines? Constant roach and mice infestations? I'm sure you all will tell me in the comments. And yes, I used jumper. You all get one. ONE. No more. That's for you, UK. Jon has never been to oovoo javer. ~~can you tell I'm sixteen~~


	6. Herculean Feats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jean Rook and Sloane DeLuca discuss the most recent change to the faculty.

His name was Jean Rook, and he was salty. So sure, maybe math didn’t “do it” for the S5s, but he was trying, okay? It was hard to compete with being so strange and mysterious, and reading aloud to your class like they’re five-year-olds. He tried to work memes into his lessons, the kind he’d seen on those teaching blogs, but the kids had just gotten a pained look in their eyes. Mr. Rook just couldn’t compete, and it wasn’t fair. What did this Mr. Sims have that he didn’t? Weird posters, a mysterious backstory, a frankly improbably cool voice? He was lucky he wasn’t the only one who didn’t appreciate the enigmatic Mr. Sims’ newfound popularity.

Her name was Sloane DeLuca, and she was bitter. Eight years she’d been teaching, and in those eight years, she’d never gotten an entire class to be as silent as Mr. Sims got them. She could hear their deafening silence as she walked by in her free periods (those rare and quiet moments where she could rush to the bathrooms in between teaching and planning), and she didn’t know how he did it. She’d tried everything, sternness, bribery, and the like before she finally accepted that you couldn't reason with sixteen-year-olds. But here was this underqualified first-time teacher who could command the attention of an entire class of teens a will. It made her blood boil. But that’s what the teacher’s lounge is for, isn’t it?

There are few practical applications to a teacher lounge. In theory, it’s a place for those poor underpaid saints to go to rest and chat and take a load off. In reality, it’s a dirty room with a couple of chairs and a broken coffee maker that no one has time to ever visit because you aren’t paid by the hour and you’ve got papers to grade. But every once and a while our teachers can get a moment's respite, and the teacher’s lounge becomes the premiere place to bitch.

Mostly, it’s about students. You might not know it, but your teachers talk about you. Sometimes it’s good things. But mostly, teachers need to talk about the pains in the neck. You know those kids. That prick in your science class you won’t shut up. That asshole in your world history class that refuses to do work. Tiffany. Just everything about that girl, am I right? So whenever teachers congregate they bitch and bitch and bitch. And today is no exception.

Mr. Rook had been in the teacher’s lounge for almost a half-hour, trying to work an aging paper cutter to better decorate his word wall. The paper cutter was a rusty hunk of junk when it was bought, and it had only gotten worse since then. Ms. DeLuca was coming in to copy worksheets, knowing that most of them will be lying on her floor by the week's end, half-finished if that. As they locked eyes, the bitching commenced.

“Hello Sloane,” Mr. Rook said, putting his entire, not inconsiderable weight onto the paper cutter and watching it move down barely a millimeter with a sigh.

“Jean.” Ms. DeLuca placed an already poorly copied paper into a basket, sighing not out loud but with her mannerisms and posture.

“How fares history?” Mr. Rook asked.

Ms. DeLuca looked at him, confused. “What?”

“I mean like, how’s it going in your class,” he explained.

“Oh.” Ms. DeLuca brushed a loose strand of hair from her face and rolled her eyes. “I mean, you can just say that, Jean.”

“I wanted to be dramatic.”

“Speaking of dramatic…” said Ms. DeLuca, hitting a series of buttons on the copy machine, making a silent prayer for it to work through to the end of the command, and sitting down at the rickety round table the county had been benevolent enough to provide them.

“Fuck, I know,” said Mr. Rook, joining her, all hopes of the paper cutter finally abandoned. “He had a whole _Gatsby_ party.”

“I honestly don’t know how he managed to make anyone care about _the Great Gatsby_.”

“It truly is a Herculean feat,” Mr. Rook agreed, begrudgingly and disgustedly.

“What are they covering now?” Ms. DeLuca asked.

“Steinbeck, I think.”

“Like _Grapes of Wrath_ and _Of Mice and Men?”_

“The very same,” nodded Mr. Rook.

“You just know he’s going to make it some great event or something,” said Ms. DeLuca contemptuously.

“I know, right?” 

“It’s not fair.”

“At least you’ve got the great tales of history,” whined Mr. Rook, leaning back in his chair, which let out a noxious screech. “I’ve just got Pythagorean theorem and slope.”

“You’ve got pi day,” Ms. DeLuca reminded him. “The kids love pi day.”

“That’s just one day, Sloane. One day out of the whole year, and no one ever cares about the math behind it.”

“Because it’s math, Jean.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Mr. Rook exclaimed. “I like math, but it just doesn’t appear to inspire the youth of today like it does me!”

“Have you tried Kahoot?” Mr. Sims appeared behind the pair in the doorway, holding a steaming cup of tea and looking tired, though neither Mr. Rook nor Ms. DeLuca could tell if that was just the way he always looked. Mr. Rook’s mouth hung open like a broken drawbridge.

“I, uh…yeah.” He managed to stammer out.

“Do the kids use it to make fun of you too because about half of their names in that are about me.” Mr. Sims took a seat between the gawking duo and rested his scarred hands upon the table. Ms. DeLuca tried not to stare.

“Yeah, uh, but I’ve been making them use just their normal names recently.”

“Hm.” Mr. Sims took a sip of his tea. Mr. Rook could swear his eyes were seeing right through him. Mr. Rook's hands felt clammy, and he did his best to keep them from shaking. “Smart.”

“What sort of names?” Ms. DeLuca’s voice sounded hoarse and raspy.

Mr. Sims cocked his head at her. “What?”

“What sort of names do your students use? In Kahoot, I mean.” Mr. Sims smiled good-naturedly, though his eyes still looked like daggers to her.

“Oh, well I don’t remember them all,” he said, though the way he said it made Ms. DeLuca think he did know them at that moment. “Lots of digs about England. I’ve gotten all of the Ghostbusters, though all in different games strangely enough. ‘Sweater Kween’ comes to mind in particular, as does ‘Twink Rights.’ I’m not sure what a twink is but according to my student’s I am one. My Martin’s confirmed, so I guess it can’t be a bad thing.” Mr. Sims downed the rest of his tea and smiled at Mr. Rook and Ms. DeLuca. “I’ve best be going. Tests don’t grade themselves.”

“Boy do I wish they did,” Mr. Rook said lamely, almost instinctively. Ms. DeLuca laughed hollowly, and Mr. Sims gave them both a nervous look.

“Sure.” There appeared to be a silent battle raging inside him, the vestiges of which crossed his face now and then. Finally, he stood and made his way to the door, though not before giving his compatriots a genial smile. “And we’re doing Salinger next, not Steinbeck. Getting anyone to care about that book will be the real Herculean feat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I finally looked up a grade level conversion chart. Can you tell? Also all of those teacher things, the griping about students, the paper cutter, the copier, all of that's based in reality. You can ask any teacher. The copier never works, and all they talk about is the principal and the problem kids. It's very fun to listen in on. Post your roasting Jon "Jarchivist" Sims Kahoot name in the comments, feed my soul.  
> EDIT: You guys are way better at coming up with Kahoot names than me.


	7. Telephone Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Georgina Barker, Melanie King, and the Admiral receive a phone call.

A promise was a promise, no matter how much Jon regretted making it as he looked out at the sea of smugly excited faces. He tapped his phone nervously with scarred fingers and sighed. 

“Once again, I feel the need to remind you all that both of them hate me,” he started. “And if they don’t pick up, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You’re stalling, Mr. Sims,” said Abdul bluntly, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, just facetime them already!” whooped Eleana.

Jon snorted and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “They will _definitely_ not allow me to facetime them.”

“Aw, really?” Ivan looked crestfallen. “I wanted to see the Admiral.”

“Wait, have _you_ met the Admiral?” asked Lily. Ivan had never looked more interested in the class, with wide, wild eyes ready to hang onto Jon’s every word. It was terrifying. Jon looked away.

“Of course. He and Georgie were my only friends when I had to hide out from the police.”

Ari looked at Jon slack-jawed. “ _What_?” 

“No, Ari!” Eleana hit Ari’s arm. “Don’t get distracted, he’s stalling again. All teachers do this, and usually it’s alright and we try to get them to do it because it means we don’t have to learn anything but-”

Jon furrowed his brow. “Wait do you all actually try and get us to stall?”

Eleana coughed. “You were calling them?”

“Right.” Jon pulled up Georgie’s contact and pressed call.

The phone rang.

The phone rang again.

The phone rang a third time.

“Hello? Jon?” Georgie’s voice filled the room, as did the tittering of Jon’s class in an excited response. “What’s this about? Is there something wrong?”

Jon sighed. “No, it’s just…” Jon rubbed the back of his neck and leaned back onto his desk. “I sort of promised my students that I’d call you and Melanie if they all got As on their last test and somehow they did it so. So yeah, this is that call.”

“You’re a teacher now, then?” Georgie asked. “Why?”

“Yeah, why are you a teacher, Mr. Sims?” Olivia said, giving him her patented piercing stare.

“No getting off-topic!” Ivan gave Olivia a little shove. “Ms. Barker?”

“Uh, yes? Who are you?”

“Ivan.” Ivan’s face was stone serious. “Can we talk to the Admiral?”

“Sure, I guess.” Georgie lowered her phone and started shouting through her and Melanie's flat. “Melanie! Bring the Admiral over here!”

“What is it?” called back the muffled voice of Melanie, to a wave of titters from the class.

“Jon’s a teacher now and his students want to talk to the Admiral.”

“Jon’s on the phone?” Footsteps. Even for how quiet Melanie’s voice was on the phone, Jon could hear her disgust. “Why’d you pick up?”

Georgie’s voice was normal again. “I thought it was an emergency.”

“Hm. Fine.” There was a rustling as Melanie lifted the Admiral to the phone followed by muffled meowing filtering through the phone’s speakers. The class exploded. It took a while for them to settle down until the only voice in the class was Consuela’s.

“Are you really Georgie Barker and Melanie King?” she asked.

“Yeah?” Melanie said over the quiet purr of the Admiral.

“Melanie, did you really stab Mr. Sims?” called out Ari at such a speed that it turned into one long word.

Melanie laughed. “I did, didn’t I?” she said fondly.

“Yes,” said Jon, far less fondly.

“Oh, don’t be like that Jon,” Melanie chided. “I wouldn’t have stabbed you if you hadn’t drugged me and performed surgery on me.”

“There was an infected bullet in your leg!” cried Jon, exasperated. “And would you prefer to be under the power of the Slaughter?”

“No,” she said. “But I don’t regret stabbing you.”

“Very few people who do are.”

“You’ve been stabbed _multiple times?”_ Ari gasped.

“Ari!” Eleana hit their arm again. “Focus!”

“Right!”

“Ms. King?” Alfie asked. “Ms. Barker?”

“Yes...child?” Jon could hear the expression in Melanie’s face as she said the word child. It mirrored his own before he got this job. Or a little bit after he’d gotten it too.

“We’ve got a list of questions we’ve written as a class for you. Can we ask them?”

“Sure. Shoot.” There was the squeak of chairs as the students of Jon’s class all got up and assembled in a line.

“This is a question for Ms. Barker.” Abdul cleared his throat. “Season Four, episode six, was that reaction genuine or did you just fake it?” There was a murmur of agreement as the class took in the question.

“Was that the one with the spiders or the one with the pirates?” Georgie asked.

“Pirates.”

“Well if you’re talking about Micah’s screaming,” said Georgie. “That was genuine. For someone who works on a ghost podcast, he’s very easily scared.”

Abdul laughed and pumped a fist. “I knew it! My brother owes me ten bucks!” Abdul practically flew to his seat, and his smile could blind the sun.

“Who’s next?” asked Georgie. There was the sound of condensing upholstery as she sank into her beat-up leather couch.

“Oh, uh, I guess it’s me.” Lily took a nervous step forward. “Hi, I’m Lily. I was just wondering if there’s going to be more _Ghost Hunt UK?_ Not that I don’t like _What the Ghost_ or anything,” she said hurriedly, running her fingers through her hair. “But it’s just I really miss _Ghost Hunt UK_.”

“Well, there won’t be anymore _Ghost Hunt UK_ ,” Melanie sighed. “The team’s all scattered to the winds and all that. But - Georgie should we tell them?”

“Eh, sure. Go ahead.”

“I’m joining the _What the Ghost_ team.” The class erupted into a cacophony of excited whispering. “I’ve been working with Georgie for a while now on _What the Ghost_ , but I’m officially joining the team...next week is it?”

“Yeah,” agreed Georgie. “We’re putting out an episode on Friday, and we’ll announce it then.” The class was deafening, their questions and comments overlapping into a singular mass of noise that almost drowned out the end of the day bell. Almost.

“Fuck,” said Eleana. “Is it already time to go?”

“Don’t say fuck, and yes,” Jon said.

“You said fuck in front of us,” Eleana pointed out.

“What’s happening Jon?” asked Georgie. “It sounded like the world was ending.”

“No, it’s just the end of the school day. I’ve got to hang up.” Grumbles replaced the excited din that had filled everything only a minute before. “It’s been nice talking to you.”

“Yeah, it actually has. I guess you can call again,” Melanie said begrudgingly. “How’s it going with Martin by the way? You two finally figure it out?”

“Yes. I’m trying to get home to him right now, but I’ve still got kids in here.”

“Aw, are they waiting for us?”

“Come on, Melanie,” Georgie laughed. “Have a good one Jon. Say hi to Martin for us.”

“Go home, children!” Melanie ordered through the phone.

“Bye.” Jon was echoed by a chorus of byes from his students as he hung up. Nobody moved, and Jon sighed. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to go home. Come on guys, I’ve already hung up.” The students slowly stood and began filing out of the room. Jon slipped his phone into his pocket with a small smile. That had gone better than he could have ever hoped. It was nice sometimes for a relief like that. Martin was never going to believe him. Jon slung his bag over his shoulder and his smile grew. He couldn’t wait to tell him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. But sometimes I get an idea when I'm trying to sleep that will only quiet down if I promise I'll write it as soon as I wake up. So yeah, this chapter! It's a bonus. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!


	8. A New Fear Emerges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is an infestation.

The hallways and corridors were rife with screams. Something new was here, something loud and fast and small, and it should not have been there. These creatures - for surely they were creatures, because how could something so disparate from you be human? - were grimy things, covered in muck and filth and something sticky, so if they managed to get a grubby little hand on you, you would never truly be free of their mark. They came bearing too few teeth and they came filled with far too much energy and they did not stop coming. There were few of these things, and for that Jonathan Sims and Jean Rook, currently barricaded in the staff lounge, were thankful. 

Jean Rook peered through the small window begrudgingly allowed on the door at the seemingly empty hallway. “Do you think any of them followed us?” He looked over to his companion, for he always seemed to know what was going on. Jon sat on the floor, back resting on what could charitably be called a loveseat, catching his breath. It had been hard evading the mob, and they had just barely gotten past them.

He just shrugged. “Hard to say.”

Jean gave Jon a worried look. “You alright?” he asked. “They didn’t touch you, did they?”

Jon shook his head. “No, I think I’m alright.” He gave the door a contemptuous glance. “Why are they here?”

“Bring-your-child-to-work day,” said Jean, making a face of utter disgust. He said the words like they were a pestilence in his mouth, and the very act of forming them made his tongue taste sour.

“No one told _me_ about it.”

“Usually, you just sort of know.”

“You overestimate the extent of my powers. I don’t know everything.”

“Sure.” 

“Oh, don’t give me that look, I don’t,” snapped Jon, standing up and padding over to the island in the middle of the room where the paper cutter sat. “We should be safe in here for the time being. Who knew so many of our co-workers wanted to bring their children in today.”

“Who knew so many of our co-workers had such little children?” Jean agreed, shaking his head in disbelief. 

Some explanation is probably required right about now. I’m sure by this point you’re wondering why exactly two teachers are so afraid of children. After all, they make their living teaching the little bastards, don’t they? You’d think they’d get by on that low-level dread of children we all secretly have and not go to these lengths to hide away from them. To explain this, you need to understand that Jon and Jean teach _teenagers_. The age-group that teachers choose to instruct is very deliberate. Those who teach little kids, those snot-nosed monsters, tend to not particularly like teenagers. Those who teach bigger kids, those snot-nosed in a different sort of way monsters, tend to revile little children. This is not a universal rule, but just about. And it is definitely true of the two adult men cowering in the break room.

“We can’t stay here forever, Jean,” sighed Jon.

“Why not?” Jon squared the other man with a withering look. “Alright, alright. But how are going to escape? They’ve barred the entrance.” A small hand, rounded and pudgy, and covered with a thin film of something damp hit the glass. There was the tinkling laugh of a child and then another until there seemed to be a cacophony of heavenly laughter. It made Jean’s blood run cold. He looked at the window and saw a handprint, red as blood and accompanied by two others, one blue and one green. The hands slid down the glass, streaking the prints until Jean could see the paint drip down to the floor and pool at the base of the door. He lept back and looked worriedly at his compatriot. “Jon?”

“I’m thinking, hold on,” grumbled Jon, waving him off and beginning to pace. The room was quiet for a moment, except for the uncomfortably close sounds of children at play and Jon’s quickening footsteps. “We could try and go through the supply closet,” he said at last.

“That’s a dead-end!” cried Jean.

“There’s a forgotten door to the side that leads out to the hallway.”

“Won’t that leave us exposed?”

Jon gave Jean a devil’s grin. “Not if you run fast enough.”

“Jon, I have a confession to make,” said Jean, with a rueful expression dripping from his face. “I am not a runner.”

“I’m not either,” admitted Jon. “But what’s the alternative?” A chubby finger wormed its way through the door, and more followed until a full hand was almost fully in the room with them.

“Alright.” Jean nodded solemnly at Jon. “I’m not even going to ask how you knew about that door.”

“I just sort of-”

“Know things, I got it. Still sure you don’t know everything?” The expression Jon threw at Jean would have been enough to wither a lesser man to the bone, but when it came to withstanding death glares, Jean Rook was second to none. He had to be, teaching math to sixteen-year-olds. “Make that face all you want, but you seem near omniscient.”

“Jean-”

Jean held up a hand to quiet him. “We’re escaping?”

“Right.” Jon tried the handle and frowned. “It’s locked.”

“I guess maintenance hasn't opened the door yet,” sighed Jean. “Do you have your keys?”

“In my classroom. I had to leave them.” Jon looked down. They’d lost so much in the escape.

"Same." Jean put a comforting hand on Jon’s shoulder. 

“So what now?” asked Jon.

“I may...I may be able to help?” Jean smiled weakly as if he was unsure.

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Jean?”

“Look just...do you have a bobby pin?”

Jon rooted around in his jacket pockets. He’d had his jacket for a while now, from way back to his time in the institute when his hair had been long and unmanageable. He'd also never bothered to remove all the junk he had stored in it. His pockets were lined with innumerable hair ties and bobby pins, and even a couple barrettes he was sure Tim had slipped into his pockets when he wasn’t looking. Jon fished a bobby pin from the inside of his jacket and handed it to Jean. “Here.” 

“Alright. Give me a minute.” Jean crouched down to the ground and started fiddling with the lock. 

“Where did you learn how to do that?” asked Jon, voice filled with wonderment.

“You don’t just know?” Jean teased. At that moment, Jon did Know. The information popped into his head like a gopher in a whack-a-mole game, but he wasn't going to give Jean the satisfaction of letting him know that, and remained silent. “Ha! There.” There was a click, and Jean stood, handing Jon the bobby pin back triumphantly. There were several loud thumps from the other door as the children began hitting it, though with their hands or their bodies neither could say.

“Come on!” Jon flung the door open and the pair rushed through it, Jon leading them through tight, dusty walkways and past shelves of paper rolls as big as either of them. Finally, they reached a door identical to the one they had just gone through. The only difference was the location and the darkness of the supply closet. Jon paused.

“What’s the holdup?” Jean asked, peaking over Jon’s shoulder. “Is it locked?”

“I just...sorry.” Jon ran a hand through his hair and adjusted his glasses. “I have a thing with doors.”

Jean gave him a look of pure and absolute confusion. “What?”

Jon ignored him and flung open the door. The light of the hallway was harsh, harsher still by contrast to the darkness they’d just exited. They only had a moment to blink and adjust their eyes because the hoard of children that had begun to swarm at the other door’s attention fell on them. The hall was still. A child, smaller than the rest and the one most clearly covered in...in whatever it was they were all covered with started towards them. A laugh escaped its lips and that laugh echoed through the posse. As did the forward motion.

Bile rose in Jon’s throat. He looked at Jean, fear in his eyes, and pulled his arm. “Run!” Neither of the two men ran very well, so it was pure fight or flight that propelled them down the linoleum halls. “Where should we go?”

“Sloane’s room isn’t far from here. Follow me.” And so they ran, through too similar corridors and too similar halls. Jean skid and yanked open a door, pulling Jon inside it and slamming it behind them. Adrenaline leaving them, the pair slumped onto the ground, wheezing like they only had one lung between them.

“What _are_ you two doing?” Sloane DeLuca glowered at Jon and Jean, arms crossed over her chest and face unamused. 

Jon smiled at her sheepishly. “Hiding?”

Sloane raised an eyebrow. “From?” Jon wordlessly pointed up to the window on the door and the carnage they'd just escaped from.

The air was colder here. Sloane’s classroom was always cold, the air conditioner never staying off for long, no matter what building services did to it. It felt nice. The room was peaceful, the worries of the hallway far off, and Sloane’s white noise machine working like a treat. 

It couldn’t last. 

“Sloane?”

“Yes, Jean?”

“What...what is that?” Jean pointed a shaking finger at a figure in the corner of the room. Its limbs were loose and dangled over the side of an intrusively large windowsill, its head nodding to music that only it could hear.

Sloane raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s my daughter, Desiree.” The figure, Desiree, glanced up at Jon and Jean for a moment to nod at them.

“She’s a preteen,” Jon realized.

“You truly do know everything, Jon,” Sloane agreed, dryly.

Jean leaned into Jon and whispered into his ear. “We need to get out of here.”

“Why?”

“Preteens are mean,” Jean whimpered, eyes full of what was either tears or trauma, Jon couldn’t tell.

“ _Teenagers_ are mean,” Jon pointed out.

“Yeah, but preteens...they don’t have a proper filter yet.”

“And teenagers do?”

“More than preteens.”

“Fine. How are we supposed to leave? The door’s blocked.” Jon tapped the door they were still slumped against with his knuckle for emphasis.

“I don’t know,” shrugged Jean. “ _You’re_ the one who’s supposed to know everything.”

Jon sighed, not even bothering to glare at him. “This room leads to the courtyard, but there’s a couple of them out there, so I don’t-”

“No, the courtyard is great,” Jean said, cutting him off. “It leads into a lot of rooms. There are less of them there than the hallway, right?”

“I think so.”

Jean squinted at him suspiciously. “And how do you know this?” 

“Do you really want to know?” Jon asked, resigned.

The grin on Jean’s face was audible. “Yes!” 

“Fine.” Jon shook his head and took a deep breath. “My time at the Magnus Institute turned me into a not entirely human avatar of the Ceaseless Watcher. My connection with the Watcher, also known as the Eye as it’s avatar, specifically as the Archivist, gave me the ability to know everything, but not without surrendering some of my humanity like I did that time I died. So I know some stuff for free, but I’m not omniscient like you seem to think I am.”

Jean shoved him over. “Fuck off, Sims. Just say you peeked through the window.”

“Language, Jean!” Sloane glared at him, reminding Jon and Jean that she was there. “Don’t go setting a bad example for my kid.”

“It’s just the fuck word, mum,” Desiree said, her voice high and scratchy like a damaged wood flute.

“Desiree, don’t swear.” Sloane’s glare turned sharply into a glower. “Look what you’ve done.”

Jean looked meekly at her for a moment before giving Jon a terrified look. “We need to get out of here.” 

Jon picked himself off the floor and gestured for Jean to follow him. “This way.” 

The courtyard was serene. Building services worked hard to make it so even if it was just a little patch of grass and trees that no one ever got to go to. Even still, the sounds of water from the pond and the rustling of the trees in the wind could be heard from all around the school if you listened closely enough. And here, there were children playing. From a distance, it was nearly...cute. The scene was almost tranquil, even. Until, of course, the heavy door from Sloane’s classroom slammed shut, and seven little heads snapped towards them.

“Jon…”

“Run.”

“Where?”

“It doesn't matter, run!” 

The once quiet courtyard was alight with sound and motion, feet on grass on gravel on dirt on mulch onward and forward, and there was no time to stop. The children were small, sure, but they had the benefit of numbers, and energy, and a ferocity that no one could truly match. They tore across the clearing, dropping rubber balls and Expo-marker swords as they came, and letting themselves be filled with excitement and adrenaline and reckless abandon. Jean and Jon, already tired from a day of evasion, did the best they could, but it was no surprise when Jon fell. 

There was the sound of a body hitting the grass and the wind being knocked out of it. Jean Rook spun to see his comrade fallen in the grass and let out a cry. “Jon!”

Jon grit his teeth and gestured for Jean to go. “Go without me!”

“I’m not leaving you, come on!” Jean grabbed Jon’s arm and pulled him to his feet. The hoard was growing ever closer, closing the distance between them at an alarming rate. Jean dragged his friend to the closet door and began to knock. He knocked gently at first but with the hoard’s approach, his pounding became faster and fiercer, and far more desperate. And when the army about to take them, the door swung open. Mrs. Bissett, old and cartiganed, smiled at the pair.

“Oh, lovely. Jon, I was just looking for you. Do come in.” Jon and Jean hurried inside, and as the door clicked shut, the mass of limbs and spit and snot went back to their prior engagements.

Jon breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Siobhan. Can we stay here for a little while?”

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Bissett said, pulling Jon further into her classroom, Jean trailing behind them. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” The classroom of Siobhan Bissett was far more befitting of Victor Frankenstein than the grandmotherly old woman who owned it. She seemed to relish in the gore and the viscera of science, and not for the first time did Jon think that she and Gertrude would have gotten on famously. 

“Eion, this is the one I was telling you about.” Siobhan spoke to the other man in the room. He was tall and handsome, with a strong jaw and kind eyes. 

The man smiled warmly and extended a nervous hand. “Hi. I’m Eion.”

Jon took it tentatively. “Jon. It’s nice to meet you.”

Jean’s eyes were locked on the man, Eion, and his face was pink. “Siobhan, who is this?”

“Oh, he’s my son of course,” Mrs. Bissett said, rolling her eyes behind thick tortoise-shell glasses. “It’s bring-your-child-to-work day after all.”

“He’s also an adult,” pointed Jean.

“Is there an age cap?”

“I suppose not.”

“Exactly.” Mrs. Bissett clasped her hands together. “I brought him here because my Eion’s a homosexual, and he’s somehow he’s managed to stay single. I thought our Mr. Sims could fix that.” She leaned into Jon conspiratorially. “You’re his type.”

“Mother!” Eion Bissett looked like he wished nothing more than to sink into the floor. “You said I was here to help organize your classroom!”

Mrs. Bissett waved him off. “Oh hush, Eion.” 

“Siobhan,” Jon said slowly, trying very hard to ignore how hot his own cheeks were. “I appreciate the effort but I have a boyfriend.”

“I know that,” Mrs. Bissett laughed as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s how I knew you were a homosexual too. And besides, I’m sure that your current boyfriend isn’t nearly as attractive as my Eion.”

"I'm not-" Jon started, but Eion, red as a beet cut him off.

“Mother!”

“Eion’s a doctor,” Mrs. Bissett said, nudging Jon forward with a wink. “Makes great money _and_ saves lives.”

“Mum, come on!”

“He’s free this weekend, and he likes that one medical history podcast, which seems like the sort of thing that you would enjoy, Jon. You could listen to it together, and,” she added, “I know Indrid who owns that seafood place. She’ll get you a table.”

“Mother I am begging you to stop talking.” Eion gave Jon a pained expression. “ I am so sorry.”

“No, it’s alright.” Jon’s voice was higher than it usually was, and he prayed that no one noticed. “We should be going. Jean?” Jean didn’t move. He was busy staring at Eion Bissett. “Jean?”

“What?” Jean blinked and looked over at Jon, confused. “Oh, right. Where are we going?” 

Jon shrugged and grabbed Jean by the arm. “I’m not sure yet. Come on.”

* * *

“So that’s why Mrs. Bissett glared at me all through the bake sale?” Jon and Martin were sitting on the couch of the Safehouse. Or rather, Martin was sitting on the couch, and Jon was sitting on Martin, wrapped in his arms. 

Jon let the sound of static fade from his ears and sighed, burrowing into Martin’s shoulder. “Yes.”

“Hm.” Martin rested his head on top of Jon’s. “You probably could have made that story a little shorter. Not that I don’t love your voice but…”

“It sort of turned into a statement, I think.” Jon laced his burned fingers in between Martin’s soft and clear ones.

“I suppose that’s also why you won’t go to that seafood place with me,” said Martin.

Jon grimaced. “Among other reasons, yes.”

“Come on, you’re still not on about the whole getting recognized thing, are you?” Martin laughed. “That was ages ago, and it wasn’t that bad.”

“It _was_ that bad.”

“Jon...”

“It was!”

Martin kissed the top of Jon’s head and sighed. “You’re ridiculous.”

“ _You’re_ ridiculous.”

“And you’re very cute when you’re making that face.”

Jon glared up at Martin. “What face?”

“Your scrunched up indignant face.”

Jon scrunched his face, indignantly. “Shut up, Martin.” 

“Does this mean that you wouldn’t go to a hospital because Eion might be there?” Martin asked, cocking his head in amusement.

“I don’t think I’ll ever need to go to the hospital,” admitted Jon. “I don’t think I can die, and I couldn’t even cut off my finger when I was trying to.”

“But what if _I_ needed to go?” prodded a smugly grinning Martin. “Would you risk it then?”

Jon raised their entangled hands and kissed Martin's knuckles. “There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t risk for you.” 

“And having to talk to Eion Bissett is one of them?”

“For you? Of course, I'd take you. Can’t be much worse than the Lonely.”

“Well I don’t know about all that,” said Martin. “I mean, the Lonely was awful but at least there’s no social anxiety. Your work-mum tried to set you up with her _son_.”

“She’s not my work-mum.”

“Jon, she makes you cookies like twice a month,” Martin pointed out.

“In hindsight, she was probably trying to butter me up so I’d date her son,” mused Jon.

“I can’t tell if that’s sweet or not.”

“She seemed very inclined for me to dump you for him, so I’d go with not sweet.” They were quiet for a beat, Jon in Martin’s arms, sucking in his warmth and his faint smell of tea and wool and aftershave.

“Was he handsome?” Martin asked, giving Jon a little squeeze. “Eion Bissett, I mean.”

Jon squinted at his partner. “That question’s a trap.”

“Maybe.” Martin fixed him with a wry smile. “What was it that Bissett said? ‘I’m sure my Eion’s far more attractive than your boyfriend?’”

“Not exactly that, though that was the gist,” admitted Jon. “But he isn't nearly as pretty as you, Martin.” He grinned up at Martin.

Martin leaned down until his head was close enough that Jon could feel his lips move as he grinned back. “That was the right answer,” he said, and when he kissed Jon and Jon kissed him back he tasted like tea and honey and chapstick, and like all good things in the world. And there wasn’t a fear in Jon’s body that could have ruined that moment, not children or confrontation or doors and what’s behind them. There was just him and Martin, and Martin’s lips on his, and all the love in between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I really don't like children. Could you tell? Writing this gave the worst/best possible idea for an avatar of the hunt, and it's just kids playing Tag.  
> For those of you who've never seen the name Siobhan before (or at least not written out), it's pronounced "Sha-vhan," and Eoin is pronounced "Owen."  
> Longer chapter but it was also a long wait so I think it cancels out. I'm not sure when the next one is coming out, But I promise sooner rather than later, and definitely before the end of the hiatus. If you want to make a request for what you want the next chapter to be, just leave a comment. Thank you all so much for reading, and your comments and kudos and bookmarks and the like. You all are wonderful, I couldn't do it without you as cheesy as it sounds.
> 
> And before you ask, yes the podcast in question is Sawbones


	9. Favorites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which days are recounted, and hoodies change hands.

Martin was tired. He was tired and annoyed and he smelled like old coffee cake and new coffee cups, and he was really, really tired. The door of Safehouse was like a beacon of hope. An old, shoddily painted beacon of hope, and he was always happy to go through it. Because that meant the problems of the day were behind him. It meant Jon surrounded by papers, and Jon in his arms, and it meant sleeping, which was almost as good as Jon, (sometimes better if Jon was being annoying about something or he had a particularly long day.) 

But right now, he didn’t need sleep, (well, that may have been a lie, but he wasn’t seeking it out at the moment), he needed Jon. To rant to, to kiss, to rant to him, to make everything better. Everything was better when Jon was around. 

He stepped over the already fraying bargain-bin Welcome mat and took a breath of familiar, homey air. "Jon, you won’t believe the day I’ve had. Samantha’s girlfriend thought it would be a good idea to-” Martin paused in the middle of taking off his jacket and looked around the living room. It was empty. “Jon? Jon are you home?”

“I’m here,” called a muffled voice, followed by the zipping up of a jacket.

Martin kicked off his shoes. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the bedroom.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Martin said, making his way to the bedroom. It was a nice room or as nice as the two of them could make it. Objectively speaking it was a mess, covered in papers and laundry and half the duvet. But it was Martin’s favorite place in the world. He leaned in the doorframe taking it in, taking in Jon drowning in a stolen hoodie, glasses askew. He smirked at his boyfriend. “Not that I don’t love you’re done early, it’s just I know you’ve been putting grading off.”

“No, I’m getting to it.” Jon fidgeted in the oversized hoodie. It was an old one of Martin’s, stained, grey, and washed out, but on Jon, it might as well have been a tuxedo the way Martin’s heart was beating.

“I know their stories will be bad, but you can’t put reading them off forever.”

“I know,” sighed Jon, in that way he did when he knew Martin was right but he desperately wished he wasn’t. “They don’t capitalize anything, Martin. And Deirdre doesn’t use paragraph breaks, it’s all just one big chunk of text.” Jon looked exasperated and defeated, and like he was going to keep listing his student’s shortcomings as authors, but just then something under his hoodie moved.

Martin wasn’t an idiot. He’d grown up on cheesy horror movies, and on weird supernatural shows, and he’d worked for years at the Institute. He knew that the motion that had just come from Jon was not normal. It wasn’t natural. It definitely wasn’t good. He took a step back. “What _fuck_ was that?”

Jon blinked at him. “What was what?”

“Jon, your hoodie moved,” gasped Martin, still staring at where the motion had come from.

“I moved my arm.”

“No, no that’s different,” Martin said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I know what _that_ looks like, and _this_ was _not_ that.”

“My arms are inside the hoodie,” said Jon, very slowly. There was another motion from inside the hoodie, and this time Martin would clearly see and elbow. “See? Just my arm moving.”

Martin bit his lip. “Why are you wearing my hoodie like that? I thought you said it made you feel like you were in a straitjacket.”

Jon flushed and burrowed deeper into the jacket. “Yes, well it’s warm like this.”

“Jon, it’s not cold outside,” Martin said, calming down. Teasing Jon always helped. Jon always helped. He always seemed to make everything alright.

Jon furrowed his brow. “Well, _I_ was cold.” There was more motion from the coat, far more than before, and Jon sat on the bed.

“Clearly. You keep wiggling.”

“I’m just trying to heat up.” Jon shivered from inside the hoodie.

Martin smiled at him. “I’ll warm you up, come here.” He opened his arms and Jon bit his lip. “What? Do you not want to be touched right now?”

More movement from the hoodie. Jon looked down into the dark recesses of the thing and made an inscrutable face. “Hm?” He glanced up at Martin. “Oh, yes. That’s it.”

“Okay.” Martin sat next to him on the bed tentatively. “Are you alright?”

Jon smiled at him unconvincingly. “I’m great.”

“Was work alright?” Martin resisted the urge to put a hand on Jon’s back.

“Work was fine,” Jon said, squirming in his seat on the bed. “Eventful.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm. I met Kroshka. Not sure how Ivan managed to bring her to school, but he finally did.”

“That’s his cat, right?” Martin grinned at his boyfriend. Jon _loved_ cats.

“Yes.”

“Were you adorable about it?” Martin could almost see the look on his face, the way his whole face shifted as his eyes crinkled and a trembling smile arched its way across his face.

Jon squinted at Martin. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, don’t pretend,” Martin said, waving dismissively at him. “You’re a wreck around cats.”

“You’re-that’s-” Jon made a face at Martin as he shifted around in the hoodie. ”Shut up.”

“Never,” Martin said adoringly. “Can I hold your loose hoodie sleeve if I can’t hold your hand?” He gestured to the abandoned oversized sleeve of the jacket hanging limply at Jon’s side. “I’ve had an I-need-to-hold-your-hand day.”

“Knock yourself out. It's your hoodie after all.”

Martin snorted. “Please, this hasn’t been my hoodie for at least a month now.”

A smile crept on Jon’s lips. “True.” Ever since Martin had used it as a blanket for a passed out on the couch Jon, Jon, and the jacket had been inseparable. He was a dirty thief, but the way his hands peeked from the ends of the too big sleeves and the way his head peeped out from under the too big hood, Martin couldn't stay mad at him. Jon cocked his head at Martin. “How was _your_ day, Martin?”

“Shit,” Martin said cheerily. The cafe where Martin worked was one of Martin’s favorite places in the village, which made it a very stupid decision on his part to work there. It was just so cozy. It was always warm in there, for better or worse, and it always seemed to glow in autumnal colors. The cafe smelled like tea leaves and coffee filters and like dusty furniture, and Martin hated everyone who entered it. Well, maybe not all of them, there were a couple of regulars who were always polite, and Martin liked who he worked with. But one thing that Martin realized very quickly was all those coffee shop AUs he’d spent his teenage years reading and dreaming about were lies. 

Jon squirmed in his jacket. “That’s fun.”

“It always is,” Martin sighed, laying down on the dirty quilt that covered the bed. “There was this old couple that were...well they were a shitty old couple, and they kept getting in Samantha’s face and I was stepping in because I don’t know I felt like I had to? She’s just a kid, really, and it’s not like we haven’t faced off against shittier old couples before. And I finally got them to back off and Samantha was fine, but it was just really draining.” Martin rubbed his eyes and readjusted his glasses.

Jon shook the hood off his head. “I’m very proud of you.”

“You should be.” Martin squeezed the hoodie sleeve still clutched in his hand. “It was dreadful.”

“You’re very brave.”

“I really am.” Jon shifted around a bit more, and then from the depths of his jacket there came a sound. A sound that Martin knew very well, and that Jon knew better. A meow.

Martin sat up slowly. “Jon,” he said. “What was that?”

“Just the bed,” said Jon, far too hastily. “You know it’s old and it squeaks and-”

“It’s not the bed, Jon, it was coming from you.”

“It was a hiccup,” stammered Jon, scooting back into the bedframe. “They’re contagious, Consuela had them and now everybody does, you know how it is-” There was another meow. Jon shot Martin a nervous smile.

Martin folded his arms. “Jon, unzip the hoodie.”

“I-”

“Jon.” A shaking, skinny arm reached out from the sweatshirt and slowly unzipped it. There, sitting in Jon’s hand, was a grey and white ball of fluff. It opened impossibly small lamp-like eyes and an unacceptably little pink mouth and let out another meow.

“In my defense, it’s all Ivan’s fault, alright?” Jon started, anxiously petting the tiny cat in his hands. “He snuck a cat carrier into school and put it on my desk and said that he didn’t know what to do because Kroshka was going to give birth and his dad wouldn’t let him keep the kittens because he didn’t want any more cats and that he didn’t know where else to go because I seemed like I knew everything but I didn’t know how to help a cat give birth and then I Knew and this was two months ago-”

Martin stifled a laugh. “What?”

“And he’s been raising them in secret in his basement but they’re getting too noisy so he has to give them away and he put a cat in my hands and so I have a cat now but she only speaks Russian which is fine because I can just sort of Know languages but you don’t and-”

Martin put a hand on Jon’s shoulder and gave him a small smile. “It’s alright.”

Jon’s eyes shone with relief. “Really?” 

“I mean it’s a cat, Jon. I can’t really say no. Look at it. It’s _tiny_.”

“Yeah.” He grinned down at the kitten. “Her name is Sotnik.” Jon scooted closer to Martin, careful not to jostle his precious cargo too much and rested his head on Martin's shoulder.

“Is that...Russian?”

“She only speaks Russian, Martin,” Jon explained. “That’s all Ivan spoke to her in.”

“Right.” Jon was making his cat face, with his eyes all crinkly and a trembling, ever-changing smile on his lips. The kitten nestled in his arms, Sotnik, purred contentedly and Jon stroked her little head with trembling hands. The scene was so adorable it almost hurt to look at. Martin hated to disturb them, but he had to. “Where’s she going to sleep? What’s she going to _eat_?”

“I...we’ll figure it out,” said Jon, rubbing the cat’s chin with his forefinger.

“Do I need to run to the store?”

Jon gave him an apologetic smile. “Maybe?”

Martin sighed. “Alright.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s important to you. And if it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

Jon gazed up at him, adoration in his eyes. “I love you, Martin.”

“You should.” Martin kissed his forehead. “I’m excellent.”

“The best there is.”

“I really am.” Martin stood and ruffled Jon’s hair. “I’ll be back, love. You better not have more cats when I get back.”

Jon’s eyes were locked on Sotnik again, and he bit back a smile. “I probably won’t.”

The supermarket was definitely _not_ one of Martin’s favorite places in the village, and visiting it without Jon to keep him from impulse buying desserts was never a good idea. But Martin had reigned himself in, and when he entered the Safehouse for the second time that day he was only weighed down by cans upon cans of cat food. 

“I’m back, Jon,” Martin called, as he stepped through the threshold. He dropped the bags on the kitchen counter and headed towards the bedroom. “There better still only be one cat in there.” Jon didn’t respond. Martin found him and the cat dead asleep, Jon curled up like a crescent moon. He’d lay a protective arm around the hoodie, now wrapped up into a makeshift cat bed that was far too big for its diminutive occupant. The scene was so adorable it almost hurt to look at, and this time, Martin left them to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, roughly (and I mean ROUGHLY) Sotnik means the Captain. Well, sort of. It's the military rank, and directly translated it means "of hundred men" and it's from the mid 16th century, so it's not exactly a captain, but it also sort of is, so I'm running with it. I just think it's a cute name for a cat, alright? And 100% the sort of name Jon "Emulsifiers ramblings" Sims would give a kitten. Also googling Russian cats was the best research I've done for a chapter yet. Sotnik is a Siberian cat, because the picture on the list was so cute I broke for a little bit. This chapter is late and that's why. Cats are so good, man, I don't know what to tell you. Even sometimes my little bastard Darwin. I love him, but he's an asshole.  
> Sorry this is a shorter chapter, but you guys got some long ones last time and this is Oops! All Fluff! so I think we're square. Thank you all so much for reading, commenting, kudos-ing, subscribing, bookmarking, other engagement that I'm forgetting and the like. It means the world to me, really.


	10. The Poetry of the West

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon and Abdul duel the values of poetry, love, and emotions as a whole, and Jon tells Martin he loves him.

High noon. The sun was bright and the showdown was such that it warranted the middle of the day having such a dramatic name.  The room, mostly barren save for the most bare-bones classroom accessories and the occasional abandoned bookbag or school project, smelled of old tea and new sweat.  Sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating the grubby linoleum tile and the flecks of dust swirling like snow.  As for who occupied the room, almost everyone else had made their way out, skipping off to lunch with a cheeriness that proved their ignorance of the battle that would soon take place. Though it was not a battle in the traditional sense, but a battle of wills.

The conundrum that out two intrepid heroes of this tale find themselves started simply enough.  A poetry unit was pedestrian for an English class, and the students couldn’t help but groan at what they expected to be a  dreadfully dull next few weeks.  And while the poetry unit Mr. Sims taught was a far sight better than most the classes they had lived through, it was not enough to spark the interest of young Abdul Mandoza.

You see, Abdul Mandoza hated poetry.  Hate was a strong word, though not nearly strong enough to fully encapsulate the loathing that Abdul felt in every fiber of his being towards poetry.  Years of poetry units had poisoned him against the genre as a whole, and at last, it culminated in the most dramatic decision that Abdul Mandoza had ever made. He just didn’t do his work.

It is a mystery, to both myself and Mr. Mandoza, why he decided that this was the unit he finally snapped.  It may have been the weight of his desposition had caught up with him, and he could no longer suffer through reading, analyzing, and writing poetry. Or maybe not. It did not matter. All that mattered was that for three weeks Abdul Mandoza had not done a single assignment.

Jonathan Sims felt for Abdul, he really did. How much of his life had he spent loathing poetry to his very core? How many poems had he scoffed at out of hand? How many poets had he mocked for the simple crime of the writing style they chose? But that was not the Jonathan Sims that stood here at high noon in this classroom. He’d grown as a person if that’s what he was anymore. He’d seen the beauty in it, the purpose of it. And it had taken him a while, and it had not been an easy journey, but Jon had made it all the same.

But it didn’t matter how Jon empathized for the boy, he wasn’t doing his work. Abdul was an exceptional student, he always had been, but he couldn’t let him skip a whole unit. Abdul, for his part, would not back down. He didn’t care what this did to his grades, he didn’t care what this did to his reputation. He was making a stand. He was ready to go round after round on this, and he had. Abdul Mandoza was not a quitter, and he would not back down. But Jon couldn’t back down either.

So that brings us to high noon, with the hum of the fluorescent lights filling the room like cicada’s song, and the sun beating down upon the pair. For a moment, neither spoke. It is a long moment, and even the air seems still and stale as they stare each other down. It is Jon, in the end, who speaks first, arms folded over his chest and jaw set.

“You have to do your work, Abdul.”

“Why?” Abdul shot back, confident and unperturbed.

“Why? Because-”

“Don’t you say because of my grades, or any other reason like that,” Abdul looked at Jon and raised his iron shield of apathy. “I don’t care.”

“Because it’s important for your education, Abdul.”

“Please,” scoffed Abdul. “We’ve learned this a dozen times at least. I’m not learning anything and you know it.”

“You’re right,” said Jon,  simply. 

Abdul’s confidence faltered. “What?”

“You aren’t learning anything,” Jon explained. “You’re not letting yourself. I take it you don’t like poetry?”

“Whatever gave you that impression?” Abdul replied, brandishing sarcasm like a knife.

“Call it a hunch,” Jon said dully. He leaned back in his chair. “Might I ask why?”

“Because it’s nonsense!” shouted Abdul. He paused a moment to recollect himself and change his mode of attack.  “I mean, it’s just a bunch of overly complicated metaphors and similes or whatever, all jammed together in a stupid format. Like,  just write clearly. Or in prose. Or both. There’s  just  no need for it.” Abdul felt like he’d made an excellent play, but Mr. Sims didn’t even flinch. He just fired back a response of his own.

“Abdul, how do you describe love?”

Abdul fidgeted in his seat. “What?”

“How would you describe love?” Jon repeated.

“I don’t know.” Abdul fidgeted in his seat a little more, trying very hard to keep Ivan’s face from his mind. “I don’t really think about love all that often.” But they both knew he was lying.

“But if you had to describe it, how would you?”

Abdul crossed his arms and tried to set his jaw. “I don’t see what this is accomplishing.”

“Humor me.”

“Alright.”  Abdul thought for a moment, pushing down thoughts that would complicate his response, and just trying to think of the simplest answer. The easiest flourish of the blade. The quickest draw of the gun. “Love is...I dunno. A bunch of chemicals in your brain.  Probably  a construct based on our romance obsessed society shoving the concept down our throats every two seconds.”

Mr. Sims looked unimpressed. “Is that all it is?”

“Well, I mean, no. But I don’t know how to explain it.”

“That is,  I think, the point of poetry,” said Jon. “I won’t pretend to be a big fan of poetry as a whole, and you’re right that it can be...pretentious at times to say the least.” Abdul snorted. “But  I think both of our problems stem from how emotional it is. It’s not logical, it’s not literal, it’s  just-”

“An emotions cocktail,” Abdul finished, and Jon smiled appreciatively at him.

“Yes.  You can’t describe love just by talking about the chemicals involved, because that’s disingenuous to what love is, the emotionality of it.  All of  the messy, complicated things.”

“Hm.” Abdul shook his head and let out a small laugh. “Well, it’s definitely a good sales pitch on poetry, Mr. Sims.”

“I do try.”

“Yeah.” Abdul looked at the ground. There was a beat, and even the sun seemed diluted in that beat as if it didn't want its radiance to overpower the moment. This was a quiet, thoughtful beat. And a long one. Finally, Abdul spoke. “How would you describe love, Mr. Sims?” he asked,  quietly.

Jon was taken aback. “I’m not a poet,” he said hurriedly.

“Neither am I, but you expect me to write a couple of poems this unit.”

“I suppose I do. May I ask why, Abdul?” Abdul didn’t exactly know why. Inspiration,  maybe, though he didn’t need it.  Maybe because he thought it would be funny, though he felt far too emotionally vulnerable to find the humor in Mr. Sims’ weird ramblings at the moment.

“Validation,” he said, and he didn't elaborate. Jon didn’t ask him to, he just responded.

“Love is...a comfort you get from someone. The comfort for it to be fine to have nothing to say because that quiet and nothingness is the point. No need to sound smart, or witty, or to pass as even marginally charming. No pressure to be anyone, only you, knowing that's all they could ever hope you’ll be. There are so precious few people you can be silent with.  That silence is the point, it’s letting the world turn off for a moment so it’s just the two of you, silent and in love, and knowing there's no person who you’d want to spend this silent moment with other than him in your arms, and you in his. The world is quiet, and that quiet  is filled  with love.” Jon may have been crying. For once, he didn’t know, and Abdul certainly wasn’t going to tell him. Jon just sighed, clasped his hand together, and smiled weakly at Abdul. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Abdul, it's my lunch break and I need to go tell my boyfriend I love him. I expect you’ll have your work turned in before the unit ends next week?”

“I...yeah.”  Abdul stood and made his way to the door, but turned and gave his English teacher, his stupid, scarred, British English teacher who was always so weird, a nod. It was simple, and it probably meant nothing, though they both knew that it didn't. “Thanks, Mr. Sims,” he said and left to go write a poem.

It probably should have taken longer for Abdul to get through a full unit of work, but the poetry unit was always one of the easier ones, and for that Abdul was thankful. The only thing that Abdul spent any real time on were the poems he had to write.  For previous, similar assignments he’d always just written a chunk of text and clicked the enter key on his laptop every once and a while, justifying it to his teachers as free form poetry and spouting nonsense about enjambment. But he didn’t here. It would have felt wrong, somehow. Dishonest.

So Abdul just sat, a blank document open, and the cursor flashing.  And he sat like that for a while,  intermittently writing something and deleting it in kind, until he let himself think back to high noon, and a question Mr. Sims had asked him. He’d dodged the question then, lied, and tried to avoid it. He’d gotten pretty good at that when it came to his feelings. Especially his feelings about Ivan. Abdul wasn’t good at emotions. He wasn’t good at having them or talking about them, and he certainly wasn’t good at writing them down. But he was going to. He couldn’t hide forever, and so he began to type. The words flowed out of him like a river, and in the end, it wasn’t very good. But it was honest, and it was his. And it felt good to write.

Abdul had never really tried in his classes before.  He was naturally smart enough to coast and had never really bothered to put real effort into an assignment before. As such, when he handed in his rubbish poem to Mr. Sims, he felt something new. Something in between pride and fear, and a fierce, confident bravado. Mr. Sims smiled at him, nodded, and put it with the rest of the papers he had to grade.  That’s why it wasn’t until several weeks later, with papers strewn all over the floor of his and Martin's cabin, and a cup of tea in his hands, that Jon finally read Abdul’s poem.

> you
> 
> and your brown pit eyes
> 
> and your chesire smile
> 
> and the way you look at me
> 
> your hand in mine
> 
> and mine in yours
> 
> and all the love  in between
> 
> you
> 
> and your too kind eyes
> 
> and your eye catching lips
> 
> and the way you make me feel
> 
> you're all  i think  about
> 
> and i hope you think of me
> 
> and i hope you think the same things
> 
> you
> 
> just  you
> 
> that's all i'll ever need
> 
> just  you
> 
> next to
> 
> me

And it wasn’t very good, but it didn’t have to be. It was honest, and it was earnest, and that was all Jon could have asked for from Abdul. Jon may have cried. He did know, but he didn’t care. He just stood up and told Martin once again that he loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclaimer, I hate poetry. So, sorry that the poetry is bad, but I hate poetry and I did the best I could. Ironic, then, that this might be my longest chapter. (Edit: hooty hoo dumbass, longest so far. (These chapters are not written or published in the order they are put in)) I dunno. This is a sappy one, and I'm nothing if not a romantic at heart.  
> Also, I am officially taking chapter requests because fuck it. That's not a guarantee that I'll take your rec, but if I do I will credit you in either the notes, summary, or both. I couldn't do this without your support, so thanks a billion.


	11. Moby Dick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are reunions, drinking, and I talk far too much about the opening and closing of doors.

It was Saturday and the safehouse was quiet. Martin was off at work and Jon had a mountain of papers to grade. The most prolific use of his powers of late was instantly Knowing whether or not his students' answers were correct, so the task of grading tended to be a rather fast one considering. Even still, there were a few more hours of work sprawled around him. He picked up Consuela’s essay on the use of figurative language in _Moby Dick_ and felt the sound of static begin to fill his ears. As Jon picked up his half-filled red pen, ready to mark all the times she'd forgotten to capitalize “Herman Melville,” the door slammed open.

No, that was the wrong word. The door didn’t slam, it exploded. Splinters rained down from the broken lock and a well-worn booted foot lowered. Its owner was dripping with blood, whether her own or someone else's it was hard to say, though one of her eyes was swollen shut and there was a nasty cut on her lip.

“Jon,” said Basira, and she collapsed upon the floor.

* * *

Basira awoke on a familiar couch wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket. The bones of the house were exactly as she remembered, but other than that it was nigh unrecognizable. There were posters hung around the living room, and throw pillows under her head. The coffee table was new and noticeably free of knives or guns. There was a mug on every surface Basira could see. She saw in the corner of her eye a nervously pacing figure, and for just a moment she thought it was Daisy. It was her house after all. Or it had been. But Daisy wasn’t here.

“Oh, you’re awake,” stammered the figure, stopping their pacing and beginning to wring their scarred hands. No, not a figure. Jon. Jon lived here now with-

“Where’s Martin?” 

Jon lowered himself shakily onto the coffee table, pushing aside some papers. “Work, though he should be home soon.” His face was dripping with concern, and his hands were moving, even as he focused his still eyes on hers.

Basira leaned back into the couch with a sigh. “So you two are settling in, then.”

“Yes, I suppose we are.” There was a small smile on Jon’s lips when he said it, and something in his eye. Hope maybe? Basira wasn’t sure. Something romantic, probably, knowing the company she was in. Gross.

Basira rolled her eyes. “That’s good.”

“Did you find Daisy?” From the stillness in Jon’s hands, it was clear that’s what he’d been begging to ask her. “I assume that’s why you’re here.”

“I’m here,” she said, “because I was in the area.”

“Tracking Daisy?”

“No. No, tracking something else.” Basira waved her hand dismissively at Jon. “I haven’t had to track Daisy for a while now.”

“Oh.” Jon looked at the ground. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Right.” He stood suddenly as if there was a spider on the table. If she hadn’t known the reason behind it, Basira would have found Jon’s fear of spiders funny. “Can I get you anything? Tea maybe?” Jon looked like he desperately wanted to bolt into the kitchen.

Basira sat upon the couch and pushed the blanket off of her. It was nice too, probably handmade, and warm as anything. It was cooking her alive, but it was a comfortable weight on her. She settled for one of the many throw pillows that adorned the couch for the weight. “Christ, you’re turning into Martin.”

“Sort of.” Jon rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and gave her a wry smile. “I just don’t know what to do. I’m not good at entertaining company, I suppose.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need anything other than a place to sleep.”

“You need a hospital,” Jon pointed out.

Basira set her jaw. “I’ll manage.”

Jon let out an exasperated cry. “Basira…”

“I’ll. Manage.” Jon probably would have said something else, but he didn’t have the time before a terrified looking Martin burst into the room, nearly throwing the broken door flying off of its hinges.

“Jon?” The sheer terror on Martin's face would have been enough to fill a fear god for several lifetimes. “Jon are you alright? The locks busted, I-” Jon was already over to him, holding Martin’s shaking face so tenderly in his hands. 

“It’s alright, Martin.” Jon smiled weakly at his partner, and Basira rubbed her own hands. She wanted to hold Daisy like that, comfort her like that, tell her it was alright with that certainty. But she couldn't. Not right now. She forced herself to focus on Jon and Martin, and tried not to think about...she just tried not to think. Jon was saying something to Martin. “We have a guest.” Martin’s eyes were wide, and so was the grin spreading across his face.

“Basira?” He sounded like he didn’t believe what he was saying.

Basira waved awkwardly. “Hello.” Then Martin really saw her, all the blood, and bruises, and scars and he gasped. He was next to her in an instant, pulling Jon along.

“Are you alright?” He looked afraid again. It was strange having someone look afraid for her like that. Especially Martin. She’d never really gotten to know him at the Archives, and the sudden dripping concern was jarring. Basira shifted nervously on the couch from the weight of his expression

“Not really,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, I guess.” Martin’s expression didn’t change. He was staring at her eye, or the swollen purple skin swelling over it. “Are you sure you’re alright? You look like-”

“Hell?” Basira raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah.” Martin seemed to make up his mind about something and turned to Jon.

“Jon, we’ve got to take her to the hospital.”

Jon just shook his head and squeezed Martin’s shoulder. “She’s refusing to go,” he said.

Martin folded his arms. “I don’t know if she’s got a choice in that.”

Basira snorted. Martin hardly cut an intimidating figure, and the fact that he was still holding Jon’s hand despite his crossed arms certainly didn’t help that. “You’re not going to be able to overpower me.”

Martin looked at Jon as if checking with him, and Jon shook his head. Martin sighed. “Fine.” He threw his hands up in resignation. “Can I get you anything?”

“Jon already offered,” said Basira, nodding at Jon. “I’m fine.”

“You did?” Martin looked at Jon with such a look of pride and adoration that Jon blushed and had to look away.

“Yes, well I didn’t know what else to do,” Jon said, flustered. Martin gently squeezed his hand and they looked at each other like there was nothing else in the world but the other.

“Jon…”

It would have been gut-wrenchingly sweet if Basira wasn’t in the room. She cleared her throat.

“I’m glad you two are happy, but I’ve seen enough of your loving glances for a lifetime.”

Martin was bright red. “We don’t-”

“Oh yes, you do.” It was honestly impressive they didn't realize how much time they'd spent staring longingly at each other in the Archives. “You’re like Frodo and Sam, I swear.”

Jon furrowed his brow and gestured between Martin and himself with a burned finger. “Who’s-”

“Martin’s Sam.”

“Right.” Jon leaned into Martin and looked at Basira, and I mean really looked at her. When he spoke again, it was almost in the way he had to that man on the boat, but softer, and Basira didn’t hear the crackling of static. “What are you doing here, Basira?”

She sighed. “I’m...taking a break.”

“From?”

“Everything.”

Martin looked at her sadly. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”

“It is sort of your house,” said Jon, rising to his feet. Martin followed suit, to a far more dramatic effect. It helped that he was at least a head taller than Jon, and didn’t weigh barely ninety pounds soaking wet. “Dinner’s at seven.” Basira let herself relax into the couch, letting the worn cloth engulf her. She waved offhandedly at them and wrapped the hand-knit blanket around her. It felt nice to be this warm, this relaxed.

“You two,” she declared. “Are old people.” She nestled into the pillows, but then stopped herself, and scrutinized the couple in front of her. “Do you cook?” Martin and Jon exchanged a look that did not speak to the quality of the meal. No, it did. It promised something...well. Basira could always pretend she could eat whatever they had made for religious purposes. That had saved her from more dinners then she could count. Jon and Martin were still talking, though it seemed the conversation had changed. Jon had a pained look on his face.

“Should we risk it?”

“C’mon it was funny last time.” Martin shot Jon a grin that he did not return. Instead, Jon looked sick and resigned.

“For you maybe.”

* * *

It wasn’t that the idyllic Scottish countryside where Jon and Martin resided had a shortage of pubs; quite the opposite. The problem was there were very few _good_ pubs. They all served beer, sure, and most even had what could be charitably called food. But there was only one really good pub in the whole village, and it had taken almost a month to find.

The ambiance here was different from that of the restaurant where Jon and Martin had gone to before. This was louder, fuller, rougher around the edges. Homier, maybe, if you went in for that sort of thing, and definitely cozier. But it didn’t do anything to ease Jon’s mind.

“Jon, stop fidgeting like that.” Martin lay a hand on Jon’s and for a moment Jon was still.

“I can’t help it,” he groaned. “I’m paranoid now.”

“We’re not even at the same place. Relax. And,” pointed Martin, “it’s a pub. Are they even old enough to drink?”

“It’s Scotland, Martin.” Jon shot his hundredth nervous look around the room. “Who knows if they even _have_ a drinking age.”

Basira sighed and shook her head. “Alright, we’re not going the whole night with you two vaguely alluding to something. What happened?” Jon and Martin exchanged a look. Jon shook his head, but Martin ignored him.

“One of Jon’s students recognized him out of school,” he told her.

“Hold on, Jon’s a _teacher?_ ” Basira choked out.

Jon gave her a wary glance. “Yes?”

And with that, Basira laughed. It was a strange sound, jubilant and deafening, and it shook her whole body. It was not a sound that Basira had heard herself make in a while, and it was not a sound that Jon and Martin had heard in longer. Martin looked worried.

“Basira?”

She held up a hand and took a shaky breath. “No, give me a minute. I’m picturing Jon interacting with children.” Basira laughed even harder.

“They’re not _children_ , they’re year 11s,” Jon said defensively.

“So they’re _teenagers_?” Basira snorted. “Are they mean to you?”

“A little bit.”

Basira was almost on the ground, and several people from around the pub were starting to stare.

Jon’s face was warm. “It’s not that funny.”

Martin kissed him on the cheek. “It is a little bit.”

Jon looked scandalized. “Martin!”

“Jon.”

“A teacher.” Basira wiped her eyes. “That’ll fuel me for weeks, thanks for that.” Martin even let out a chuckle. Jon did not join in.

“You two are ridiculous.”

“Speaking of ridiculous…” Basira drummed her fingers on the table and gave the room a once over, disdain in her eyes. “Is there anything to drink around here?”

“I mean, it’s a pub.”

“Then why are we not drinking?” roared Basira. Her enthusiasm was not matched by her companions.

Martin shrugged. “I don’t really drink.”

“Me neither,” agreed Jon.

“Really?” Basira looked beside herself. “After everything you’ve been through?” She was positively aghast.

“I don’t like the taste,” Martin explained.

Jon made a face. “I don’t like the feeling.”

“Boo!” Basira gave Jon a little shove that nearly sent him sprawling. “I’m getting you two properly drunk. It’s a celebration!” Jon looked at her, confused.

“Of what?” he asked. But Basira was already making her way to the bar.

“None of your business!” she shouted, and then she was gone. She returned after a couple of minutes with an armful of beer and a smile on her face that nearly split her head in two.

Martin gave her a nervous look. “Why are you smiling?” 

Basira put the beers on the table as well as a small slip of paper, bright white on the dark stained bar table. “Did you know this pub has a trivia night?” All the color drained from Jon’s face like water from a half-filled bathtub.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Oh fuck.” 

Martin, on the other hand, holding his other hand, had quite a different reaction. 

“Really?” Martin had never done a bar trivia night, but he’d seen so many on television that it had always been one of those things he secretly dreamed about but had never had the friends to do so.

“I figure we stand a pretty good chance of winning, what with our combined knowledge,” Basira explained, and Martin nodded emphatically.

“Yeah, you’ve read a lot of books, I’ve got a pretty good grasp on poetry and art history, and Jon knows literally everything!” He gave Jon a quick squeeze that Jon would have been all over if the circumstances were different.

“My point _exactly_!” Basira exclaimed.

Jon’s voice came muffled and dull from the crook of Martin's arm. “I mean, I went to Oxford.” Basira raised an eyebrow at him.

“But did you learn _literally_ _everything_ there?”

“I guess not.” Jon slumped into Martin properly, his head lazing on Martin's shoulder. “Though I don’t really want to use my eldritch powers to cheat at a trivia night.”

“You should, because the prize is free drinks, and I plan on running up quite a tab. It’s been _ages_ since I’ve had a drink.” The way Basira rubbed her hands together made Jon think of a supervillain or a mad scientist, which was, to say the least, worrisome.

“Why would we be paying for drinks?” he asked.

“Because you’re living rent-free in my house.”

“Alright fine,” conceded Jon.

“Excellent.” Basira pulled a pen from deep within her hijab. She cleared her throat and spoke very quickly. “Also we needed a fourth player so I may have asked Helen-”

Not quickly enough. Jon made a horrible strangled noise. “What!?”

Barira ignored his stammering. “But what do you think our team name should be? I’m feeling ‘Fuck you, Elias,’ but I’m not married to it.”

“I like ‘Fuck you, Elias,’” Martin mused. “Though we should make it more specific. First _and_ last name eliminates confusion from which Elias, you know?”

“I’m sorry, you invited _Helen?_ ” Jon looked like he’d been hit by something cold and wet.

“Oh, lighten up,” said Basira, scribbling ‘Bouchard’ onto the paper at Martin's behest. “She’s been a real help. She helped me find Daisy.” There was an uncomfortable silence.

Jon finally broke it. “I don’t like this.”

“I know.” Martin squeezed his hand and gave him a kiss on his forehead. That helped. It usually did. It was very hard to be upset by anything when Martin was holding you like that, filling your nose with the smell of tea and cinnamon, and kissing you so gently you feel like...like you can’t even think of simile.

“I'll be alright.” Jon turned to Basira. “When’s Helen coming?” There was the creak of a door and the weight of a hand on Jon’s shoulder. But it was not a hand, and it did not feel like one.

“Right now!” You could practically hear the smile on Helen’s face.

“Hi Helen!” said Basira, not looking up. Martin echoed her greeting. Jon stayed firmly where he was.

“Hello Basira,” Helen said, sliding onto a stool next to her, her torso moving like an accordion as she moved. She gave Jon an indescribable look. “Archivist. Martin. Good to see you two figured it out.”

Martin gave her a polite smile. “Thanks.”

Jon furrowed his brow. “Martin.”

“Oh, come on, Jon. It’s fine.” Jon made a little _harumph_ but was otherwise quiet enough.

Basira erased what she had on the little slip, now noticeably far more grey than before, and looked at Helen, her face a mask of mischief. “Jon’s a teacher now.”

“Really?” The word was long and undulating, and filled with malicious excitement.

“Yeah.” Basira leaned into Helen like she was telling her a secret. “He teaches teenagers.” Helen let out a gasp and covered her mouth with those wrong hands of hers.

“Are they mean to him?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s hilarious!”

“Isn’t it?”

Jon let out an exasperated sigh. “Basira, you were saying something about a team name?”

* * *

“Alright folks, we’re down to the final two!” It had been almost two hours and the stakes were high. The short, balding man with a smile of unearned confidence and a wardrobe of old band shirts, the announcer, surveyed the room like he was hosting an MMA match, not a local bar trivia night. He held a hand to the far side of the room with a flourish. “We have our reigning champions, _the Quizzard of Oz!_ ” The other team was a diverse lot, though all had the same annoyed expression on their faces. The scores were tied, and that had never happened to them before. The only reason they had gotten as far as they had was that they were fast. It took time to ask the eye things sometimes. The stout man’s hand then fell to Jon, Basira, Martin, and Helen with equal, if not more, gusto. “And newcomers to both our little Trivia night and this fine country, _Jon and the Hot Ones!_ ” There was a smattering of applause for both teams, though far less than what you would expect from a crowd led on by an announcer with such enthusiasm.

Jon rubbed his tired eyes. “I _still_ don’t agree with that name.” His other three teammates just snickered.

“Don’t worry Jon, you’re hot too,” Martin crooned, kissing Jon on the cheek.

It was very hard to scowl through a Martin Blackwood kiss, but Jon managed. “You’re just happy they included you in the hot ones.”

“Am I not hot, Jon?” laughed Martin teasingly.

Jon failed to fight off a grin. “Well, I didn’t say that.”

Basira snapped her fingers at them. “Focus, you two, we’re here to win, not flirt!” Jon sighed and looked at his teammates. Basira was a mask of determination and resolve, and Jon wondered if that’s what she looked like when she was about to make a kill. Martin had caved and drank a little, and was a surprising lightweight. He’d been basically useless for two rounds, but he was a very affectionate drunk, and Jon couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at him for it. He never could, not really. He was a little jealous though, as he’d been told rather explicitly that he wasn’t allowed to drink anything. He wanted something to numb the pain in his eyes, which were starting to burn from use. Then his gaze fell on Helen, and the way she was looking at the competitors. She looked...hungry.

Jon poked her on the shoulder and regretted it almost instantly. It felt weird. Wrong. Like there were too many bones, and the bones didn't make sense. “Helen.”

She glanced at him, her spiral eyes almost fixed on him, as if eyes like those could ever truly be fixed on anything. “Yes, _Teacher_?”

“After we finish this, win or lose,” he said. “Don’t eat the Quizzard of Oz.”

Helen looked crestfallen. “Not even a little bit?”

“No.”

“Not even the really obnoxious one?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun.”

Basira snapped at them. “Quiet!” The room started to fall silent too until there was naught a sound but a few scattered whispers and the booming of the announcer's mic, too close to his face.

“Our last question for the night is a bit of a spooky one.” The knowledge of the question slammed into Jon like a freight train and he hit his head on the table with equal aggression and intensity. The others shot him a confused look. “What year was the London institute of the supernatural, known as the Magnus Archives, founded?” Jon hit his head on the table several more times.

“Did you tell them to do that?” he groaned from the table at Basira.

“Less talking, more brain Googling!” laughed Martin, poking Jon.

“It’s 1818.” He didn’t even have to ask the Eye.

“Excellent!” Helen raised her hand up and up and up until it was two feet above the heads of everyone in the room.

If the announcer noticed, he didn’t say anything, he just pointed to them and barked, “Yes, Jon and the Hot Ones!”

“1818!”

“That is correct!” he cried, and the room was filled with groans, cheers, and Helen’s strange, echoing laugh. “We have a new champion, Jon and the Hot Ones come on over to accept your prize!”

* * *

“I’ve never had a drink as the Distortion before. I wonder what it’ll be like.” The trivia champions known as Jon and the Hot Ones were circled around a table filled with free beers. Helen held one with a reverent curiosity.

“Will you even get drunk?” asked Basira, clutching her third drink for the night. She didn’t even look tipsy.

“I don’t know.” Helen turned to Jon. “Do you know? Can _you_ get drunk?”

Jon shrugged. “Only one way to find out I guess.” In one fluid motion, Jon grabbed a glass and downed the whole thing. Basira let out a shaking laugh.

“Jon!” she gasped. “I thought you didn't drink!”

“Not usually.” He wiped the foam from his mouth. The pain in his eyes was already starting to ease and the Eye had never been quieter. His hand stretched out for another cup. “But it’s like Basira said, we’re celebrating.” He threw back the next glass like a practiced frat boy, not like the dry academic he was.

“ _Yes_ , Teacher!” cheered Helen, following suit. Her whole body was interrupted by a golden wave rippling down her body. Helen looked delighted.

There was a familiar warmth on Jon’s back, and he felt Martin holding him steady. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been tottering on his stool, threatening to fall over. “Easy, Jon.” But Martin was laughing. “It _is_ Sunday.”

“Ooh, Jon’s got school tomorrow?” asked Helen, wiggling not her eyes but her eyebrows.

“Yes.” Jon sighed. He didn’t let go of the glass he was holding.

“Slow it down on the beers, then,” ordered Basira. “Do you really want to deal with teenagers _hungover?_ ” Jon shuddered but took another long sip.

“What are we celebrating anyway?” he asked when his glass was empty.

Basira gave Helen an inquisitive look. “Should I tell them?”

Helen shrugged. “It’s up to you. It's your news after all. I just officiated."

“Right.” Basira drained half a pint before she said anything else. “I found Daisy.”

Jon nodded solemnly. “You said.”

“Is...is that really something to celebrate?” Martin asked. Basira smirked at him and Jon and lifted her left hand. Neither of them had really looked at her hand before then; why would they? But now, the soft light of the overheads hitting it they could both see a ring in the intricate silver shape of a wolf. Basira gave them both a smug smile as they looked from Basira’s hand to Basira, back to her hand, and a smile came to their lips as well.

* * *

Teaching a class hungover is actually easier than you think. All you’ve got to do is put on a movie and give off mad hangover vibes. Most kids know to leave you alone if you do, and that it’s never wise to poke the bear. Jon was definitely not a bear, but twinks aren’t to be poked either - not hungover like this. So it was a relatively quiet morning, save for a few snickers here and there. No one even really talked to Jon until lunch when Consuela approached his desk. Jon was face down, large black coffee half-filled with espresso clutched in his hand.

“Mr. Sims?” Consuela fought the urge to shake him. He looked asleep. He looked _dead_. Thankfully his head rose, though he looked like a zombie.

“Yes, Consuela?”

“Have you had time to look over my essay yet? The one on _Moby Dick?_ ” She felt rude asking, though she’d actually felt proud of her work for once. She’d liked _Moby Dick_ , and not even because it was a book about a sperm whale named Dick, though that had definitely helped.

“I-sort of.” Mr. Sims pushed himself up to a full seated position, barely leaning on his elbows at all, and rubbed his eyes. “I have a company staying over. It might take a little longer.”

“Oh, that’s alright. Is your company those women you were at the pub with last night?” Jon had unfortunately taken the time she used talking to take a sip of the void black nightmare he had in a coffee cup, and for his hubris, he choked on it.

“Why were you at a pub?” he asked, horrified. “And on a school night?”

“It’s _Scotland_ , Mr. Sims.” Consuela rolled her eyes. "Good job, by the way. The Quizzard of Oz has been the reigning champions for months now.”

“Well, thank you, Consuela.” Jon took a sip of his nightmare concoction and felt a jolt of caffeine shoot through his body. “But you really shouldn’t be at pubs yet. Especially not on a school night.”

“Neither should you,” Consuela pointed out.

“And ‘Herman Melville’ is a proper noun, you need to capitalize it.”

“Shit!” Consuela bit her lip. “I knew I forgot something.”

“Don’t swear, Consuela.”

“You’ve said fuck in front of us. And ‘Herman Melville is a fake-sounding name.” Consuela thought it was stupid a man with such an idiotic name had written one of the few books she’d enjoyed this year. Mr. Sims’ head started to droop and he sighed, taking in another drink.

“Just go to lunch, Consuela.” Consuela nodded and made her way out. The door itself was a quiet one, so Jon knew exactly who entered the room after her when he heard a long, labored creak.

“Hello, Teacher!” Helen stuck her neck out of the door, and her neck kept going for a while until the rest of her body followed.

“You know you don’t have to call me that,” Jon reminded her. He’d told her as much the day before, and expected equal effectivity from this conversation.

“Well, you’re not an archivist anymore, are you?” she asked, sitting at Ari’s desk, which was far too small for the length of the limbs it comfortably held.

“I’m still _the_ Archivist.”

“Maybe. But that’s not as fun.”

“Point taken.” Jon massaged his temple. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just checking in on you!”

He raised an eyebrow at Helen.“You just wanted to see me teaching, didn’t you?”

She gave him a shark's grin, and there were so many teeth. “Maybe.”

“Well, it’s lunchtime and you just missed the last of my students.” Helen made like she was about to say something, but Jon beat her to it. “Please don’t drop in in the middle of my class.”

“You’re no fun. First I can’t eat the Quizzard of Oz, now I can’t see you teaching-”

“Helen.”

“Fine.” Helen left Ari’s desk, though Jon didn’t see her do it, and was in her doorway just as fast. Before she closed the door she gave the room a once over and said, “Your classroom is hilarious by the way.” Her laugh filled the room long after the door slammed shut, and Jon continued to work, wishing that he could Know his head into not hurting, and dreaming of rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon's white whale is a moment's peace where he can live his life without a student recognizing him.  
> Helen spends the next several chapters offering to officiate for Jon and Martin as well.  
> Shout out to Auroraloo for this suggestion!  
> So how's everyone talking the hiatus? I've already had a breakdown. It's only been three days! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  
> So yeah, I've been pretty good. If you want to see a specific chapter, tell me in the comments! I need a distraction! I promise I'll have at least two new chapters by the time September 3rd rolls around, not including this one. We'll make it, I promise. See you next time, y'all!
> 
> (Also Also: I want to share this snippet from my outline because I think it's very funny, far too funny to just get deleted. "[lifts up her hand, take a wild fucking guess buckeroo what’s on that hand, smug smile, and that’s ALL THEY GET! HAHAHAHAHA]")


	12. Knowledge and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the class learns something truly horrifying, and do not recover.

Olivia hadn’t meant to find it. She’d been looking for something darker, and while being a suspect for murder was good, the accusations hadn’t gone anywhere and it just didn’t feel as big as this. And anyway, Mr. Sims had told them as much already.

You weren’t supposed to google your teachers, right? Olivia had been told that in the past by her brother, who hadn't been able to look Mrs. Bissett in the eyes after he’d googled her four years ago and never told Olivia why. And she hadn’t looked further into it like her brother made her promise. But she hadn’t listened to him when he’d gripped her tightly with shaking hands and haunted eyes and begged her never to google her teachers.

Her hand was still on the trackpad of her busted up HP, and her phone was limp in her hand. She’d told people. This wasn't the sort of thing you just sat on and let fester inside you, no. This was news to be shared, and so Olivia had. But she still felt numb.

Have you ever learned something about someone that made you sure that your life around them would never be the same? Or just that you would never be the person you were before you learned that information about them? Olivia couldn’t even bring herself to pull her earbuds from her still ringing ears, and as she sat a changed woman on her pristine four-poster bed, she wondered who this knew Olivia was.

Eleana hadn’t believed her, this new Olivia. She just couldn’t. Greggory had filled the phones of his classmates with the news with a speed that Olivia couldn’t match. Ari’d listened to all of it over and over, and Abdul had just laughed and laughed and laughed. Ivan was the first to ask how they’d bring it up, and no one had an answer for him. The only one who seemed as changed as Olivia was was Alfie, but he always was easy to shake. Not like Olivia. Dependable, unflappable Olivia. She was supposed to be stronger than anything, certainly stronger than a realization about her English teacher.

Olivia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to move forward. And she would, honest. Just as soon as she got that song to stop ringing in her head like the bells of Notre Dame.

* * *

There was something different in the classroom, Jon could feel it when he walked in. Some change, something small yet gargantuan, and it was thick in the air. The class was quiet. Too quiet. And usually, all teachers ever want is a quiet classroom, and none more than Jon, but this? This was an unnatural quiet. A calm before the storm. Jon made his way to his desk as someone began to hum a familiar tune he couldn’t quite place, but made the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge.

Today was another independent work day, but that had never meant that the students worked independently. It certainly had never meant that the room was so quiet, nor the students so focused singularly on their task. Not even Abdul and Ivan were talking. This was wrong. You weren’t supposed to look gift horses in the mouth, but this horse seemed to only be a gaping maw, and Jon was, after all, the avatar of the Eye.

Olivia was the first to finish. She rose from her seat like a vampire would it’s coffin and walked slowly and purposefully towards him. She placed her paper on his desk, resolute, and locked those fierce eyes of hers squarely on him. She gave him a smile, one that made Jon’s blood run cold, and the growing smiles on the rest of the class's faces made it ice. And when Olivia spoke, Jon realized what had happened. Why the class was silent, why he recognized the song someone had been humming.

Because he’d written it.

“Here you are, Mr. d'Ville,” Olivia said. And on that day, looking out at his class, looking into their eyes, knowing and Knowing the thoughts in their heads, or the one deafening thought, Jon truly knew what it was to feel fear. And the Eye was full to bursting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you even fucking imagine finding out your teacher was the lead singer of such a bizarre ass band like the Mechanisms? I imagine they'd have the same reaction I did when I first heard Jonny Sims sing about being a poly Sci-Fi western Lancelot, which is to say a visceral excitement and confusion. Imagine the bullying. Imagine singing literally any song from the Mechs at him. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it justice, so that's why that cuts off when it does but like how do you even react to that as Jon or the children? You can't. You die instantly. That was originally the last line of this chapter by the way. "And Jon died instantly." I felt like what I went with was better, even if that was more true. Also I know technically that it's called the Beholding or whatever, but I just can't take it seriously because I have a copy of the Monster Manuel on my desk, and it's just the funniest looking Beholder. It's a serious problem.  
> Additionally and far more relevantly, I’ve decided the song ringing in Olivia’s ears is Hellfire, and the song someone was humming was Pump Shanty. Do with that knowledge as you will, and sorry if either of those songs are stuck in your head now.


	13. The Last Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonathan Sims makes a most disgusting realization about himself, and is also bullied by some children.

“I don’t understand why they’re throwing a party, and I certainly don’t understand why they’re inviting me.” Jon and Martin were in a car on their way to a graduation party Jon’s students were throwing. The invitation (created and distributed by Alfie) had been stuck to their fridge for two weeks now, and the date, written in clean Times New Roman, had been looming over Jon ever since.

“Because they’re graduating and they like you,” Martin told him, glancing for a moment at Jon before locking his eyes, once again, on the road.

Jon rolled his eyes. “No one likes me.”

“I like you.”

“You’re an outlier.” Jon massaged his temple. “God, I’m rubbish at parties.”

“I figured,” Martin said. “That’s why I’m coming.”

Jon raised an eyebrow at him. “No ulterior motive?”

“Well, I didn’t say that,” Martin laughed. “I like spending time with you.” Martin paused for a moment to pull into a parking space. “And the last time I met one of your students it was really funny.”

Jon narrowed his eyes at Martin, deadly serious. “Don’t tell them anything.”

“No promises.” Martin turned off the ignition and held Jon’s hand. “You ready?” Jon sighed.

“As ready as I can be.”

For some bizarre reason, the party was outside. Maybe because the whole event seemed perfectly crafted to punish Jon for being alive. Or maybe because it was the first day in a week where the sky was clear. One of the two. There were balloons scattered around, and a couple of picnic benches with assorted tablecloths and loose decorations. Worst of all, it appeared that Jon and Martin were the last people to arrive. 

“We don’t have to be here if you don’t want to,” Martin whispered.

Jon squeezed his hand. “I’ll be alright.”

“As soon as you want to leave, just tell me, okay?” Jon looked up at Martin’s face, at the concern for him, and he smiled at Martin.

“Okay, Martin.”

“So you’re Martin then?” Ari materialized behind the two of them, a cup of punch in hand. They stared intently and inquisitively at Martin. 

“What?” Martin spun around so fast he almost hit Jon in the face. “Yeah? Why?”

Ari shrugged. “You’re not what I was picturing from how Mr. Sims talks about you in class.”

“What did he say?” Martin asked, a smile creeping to his lips.

“Ari,” Jon warned, but there was a smile on Ari’s face that matched Martin’s to a worrying degree.

“Oh, well a lot of things,” they said coyly. “I know Eleana kept a fuller list, oi Eleana!”

“Yeah?” Eleana materialized right next to Ari. She took in Martin. “This Martin?” 

Ari nodded. “You have that list of things that Mr. Sims said about Martin?”

“It’s on Olivia’s conspiracy board,” Eleana sighed. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve got the highlights memorized.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jon muttered, covering his face with his hand. 

“I think the best one was the poetry thing,” Eleana said, ignoring Jon.

”Oh, yeah. The poetry thing,” agreed Ari.

“What poetry thing?” Martin asked, excitedly.

“Well,” started Ari, rubbing their chin. “Abdul was asking what the purpose of poetry was because you could just get to the point with prose and it would save everyone the headache.”

“And Mr. Sims told him that the point of poetry was winning the heart of misanthropes,” Eleana finished.

Martin snorted. “That’s very sweet, Jon.” Martin gave Jon’s non-face coving hand a loving squeeze. “And here I was thinking you thought my poetry was rubbish.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You told me it was!”

“That tracks. He was ruthless grading our original poems,” nodded Eleana solemnly. 

Jon raised an eyebrow. “You wrote a limerick and tried to rhyme again and rain like in the Itsy Bitsy Spider,” he reminded her.

“Exactly!” cried Eleana. “There’s a precedent for it, Mr. Sims!”

“Oh, shut up, Eleana, you still got a B.” Ari took a sip from her punch and waved dismissively at her classmate. “Anyways, I think we’ve embarrassed Mr. Sims enough. We should give Martin the reins.”

“Martin don’t you dare.” Jon gave Martin a warning look.

“Oh, come on Jon,” Martin laughed. 

“Yeah, come on Mr. Sims!” goaded Eleana.

“Martin,” warned Jon. “If I’m going to teach here next year it’s going to be with a clean slate and an air of mystery surrounding me.” They all went quiet.

“You’re going to teach next year too?” Martin asked.

“What?” Jon looked at him, surprised. “Of course.”

“Shit, Jon, I didn’t know you liked it so much.” 

“It’s grown on me.” Jon made a face of disgusted begrudgement.

“Aw, he likes us!” Eleana said, only half teasing.

“If you like us, will you tell us how you got some of your, ugh, ‘non-gang related’ scars?” Ari asked, eyeing, in particular, the burn on his hand with enthusiasm and curiosity.

“You get one each,” sighed Jon, much to the excitement of the students standing in front of him. “And if you tell anyone else, I’ll deny it.” 

“How’d you get that burn?” Ari blurted out.

“A handshake. Eleana?”

“A _handshake?”_

“Those holes can’t all be from worms,” Eleana said, cutting off the indigent sputtering from Ari.

“They are, unfortunately.” Eleana made a face.

“Gross.”

Jon nodded. “Correct.” Jon rested his head on Martin’s shoulder. Martin kissed his forehead.

“Ready to go?”

“Not yet,” sighed Jon. “I think I want to stay for a little while longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are some things I wanted to add but couldn't figure out how to worm in:  
> \- Martin singing "Hot For Teacher" by Van Halen at Jon  
> \- Parent-teacher conference/PTA meeting/Staff meeting (Are those a thing in the UK? Are those a thing for people at higher levels of academia?)  
> \- More domestic jonmartin, though I suppose I can just make that it's own fic  
> \- Spirit week, but Jon manages to make every day pajama day through convoluted loopholes, his pajamas are just like cheap pajama pants and a shirt he stole from Martin that's comically large  
> \- Jon is missing two ribs, and he just sort of...still has one of them. Just like...in his house (because what, he's just going to leave it at the Institute? Would you?). Dunno how I'd bring that up, but I feel like I should have somewhere, ya know?  
> I'll probably add these in at some point like I've slowly been doing because this is all my brain ever thinks of apparently, so if you really want one of these in fic form, you're probably in luck. *Feel free to request stuff though! I've got nothing but time and two (2) brain cells, and they all go to y'all.* If you haven't checked out the comics by ehlihr, there's a link to them in the first and second chapters (because those are specifically based on their comics) and they've got some GREAT TMA art so I would highly recommend checking them out.


	14. Fading Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maleik Mandoza is disappointed with his English Teacher.

It had been two years, but Maleik was still nervous. He felt like he shouldn't be. Sixteen was an age where you shouldn’t be nervous, you should be almost grown-up, and little things like new teachers shouldn’t phase him. But the way his brother, Abdul, had talked about Mr. Sims…

Maleik knew, deep down, that Abdul was fucking with him. He had to be, right? Mr. Sims was an English teacher, after all, not a musician, or a ghost hunter, or an ex-gang member. He couldn’t be. The closest thing to any of that Maleik had ever seen from a teacher was Mrs. Bissett, and she didn’t count for obvious reasons. And even if he had been, it had been two years since Abdul’d had him as a teacher. Maybe he'd misremembered something. Maybe Mr. Sims was just an ordinary English teacher and Abdul was just fucking with him. That's what older brothers did. No matter what he told himself, Maleik couldn’t shake the feeling of unease as he made his way to his seat.

Right away, Maleik could tell that he was not the only one who’d been told stories. There was a nervous, apprehensive hum in the air, a weight of the coming unknown that pressed on Maleik’s chest. Maleik started nervously doodling on the desk to calm the sense of building dread that was filling the room. In the distance there were footsteps, and the room fell oppressively silent. A man stepped into the room.

Mr. Sims was, all things considered, a disappointment. From the exhale of the students around him, Maleik could tell that he wasn’t the only one who thought so. He looked almost normal. A bit scruffy, maybe, and he kept nervously twisting the engagement ring on his finger with an ephemeral smile, but overall normal. Just some scrawny brit in a worn professor’s jacket. Maleik felt robbed.

Mr. Sims, for his part, didn’t seem to notice the student’s reaction to seeing him. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care. He just went straight to writing his name and the subject on the board in a neat, practiced hand. Two years Maleik had waited to meet the English teacher of whom Abdul had spent their family dinners talking about. Two years Maleik had let those stories warp his very idea of what an English teacher was. And all for this. He just couldn’t stand it.

“Sir,” said Maleik, his hand piercing the sky with a palpable ferocity. “Are you really _the_ Mr. Sims?” Mr. Sims turned around and blinked at Maleik, a look of amused confusion flickering like candlelight on his face.

“Yes,” he replied with an incredulous laugh. “I suppose I am.” He glanced down at the attendance sheet on his desk and then back at Maleik. “You’re Maleik Mandoza? Abdul Mandoza’s brother, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Maleik crossed his arms and set his expression.

“Nothing, just...how’s your brother doing?” The warm smile on Mr. Sims’ face made Maleik want to scream.

“Off at Uni,” he practically spat.

“Oh, good for him.” Mr. Sims made a motion to sit at his desk, but Maleik cut him off.

“You’re not what I expected.”

Mr. Sims raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Yeah!” Maleik looked over his shoulder to see an annoyed-looking Makayla Treiger pointing at their teacher accusatorily.

“What did you expect?” asked Mr. Sims, clearly amused.

“Someone...odder,” mused Kerry Beauchamp. “More eccentric.”

“You’re too normal!” said Maleik to a murmur of agreement from the class.

“No way you were in a gang!” Patrick Kittring shouted, to a roar from the class. Mr. Sims leaned onto his desk and took a sip of tea as he waited for the class to settle down.

“Well, I wasn’t in a gang for one, no matter what Ari Davenport tells you,” Mr. Sims said to a chorus of several disappointed sighs.

“Were you at least in a band?” asked Nathaniel Ortiz, hope filling his every word.

“I was in a band, yes,” Mr. Sims sighed.

“And you know the _What the Ghost_ crew?” Syeed Lemus’ eyes shone like suns. Mr. Sims smiled mischievously.

“They’re coming over next weekend on holiday.” The class didn’t calm down for five full minutes. Maleik counted.

“You worked for the Magnus Institute, right?” Jesse Neilson gave Mr. Sims a skeptical, almost reproachfully so, look.

“Unfortunately,” Mr. Sims made a face and then got a wistful look in his eye. He rubbed his ring again. “Though it is where I met my Martin, so it’s a mixed bag.” He looked lost in thought and probably would have remained so for a while if he wasn't interrupted by an on-her-feet Karina Rubio-Amaya.

“You were a murder suspect?” she asked. Mr. Sims rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Twice, technically speaking.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Karina’s eyes were alight with malice, and she was practically bouncing.

Mr. Sims just shrugged. “Not the people I was suspected of killing.” The class was once again filled with speculative chatter, but there was something eating at Maleik, and he was about to be consumed by it.

“What about your scars?” The room went quiet, and in that quiet Maleik realized just how loud he’d been. Maybe if he had been fifteen he would have sheepishly sunk into his chair, but that was the old Maleik. The S4 Maleik, and that’s not who he was anymore. This Maleik didn’t back down, no matter how much he wanted to.

“What about them?” asked Mr. Sims.

“The worm scars, the knife scars, the burn scar? Where are they?”

“They’re still there. I don’t think they’ll ever really be gone. But scars fade, Mr. Mandoza.” Mr. Sims rose to his feet and clasped his hands together. He smiled at the class. “Shall we begin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Jon and Martin are engaged in my universe. No, I will not be taking constructive criticism. This is very rapidly becoming a fix it fic. And I feel like we don't bring up the fact that Jon has killed people before. Not like season five eye smiting, but like lowkey murder? Idk dudes, Jon's just such a weird dork.  
> Need something new to read? I've got a new fic out! It's called Assistants, and you can check it out [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429289/chapters/67050124)  
> Update: 8000?!?!?! What?!?!?! You guys!!!!! Y'all mean the world to me, and I mean that. Thanks for the comments, the kudos, the bookmarks, the subscriptions, and most of all for reading.  
> Feel free to request stuff though! I've got nothing but time and two (2) brain cells, and they all go to y'all.  
> Update: TWLEVE THOUSAND?!?!?!?! FUCKING WHAT?!?!?!?! YOU GUYS?!?!?!!!??! ILYSM!!!!!!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @ehlihr on Twitter and Tumblr for letting me fic this (I love your art btw!) Disclaimer: I am a 16 y/o American. Is this how school in Scotland works? *Scooby Doo I don't know noise* I'm doing my best. Thanks for reading.


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